PASSERES. | | _The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Volume 2 With a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's surface

TURDIDÆ. | | |

1. Turdus | 9 | The whole region | Almost cosmopolite

2. Mimus | 2 | All U. States and to | Neotropical

| | Canada |

3. Galeoscoptes | 1 | E. of N. America | To Panama

4. _Oreoscoptes_ | 1 | California and Rocky | Mexico

| | Mountains |

5. _Harporhynchus_| 7 | N. America, chiefly | Mexico

| | the west |

| | |

SYLVIIDÆ. | | |

6. Myiadestes | 1 | W. of Rocky Mountains | Neotropical

| | and to Canada |

7. _Sialia_ | 3 | All United States and | Mexico and Guatemala

| | to Canada |

8. Regulus | 3 | All United States & | Palæarc., Cent.

| | to Labrador | America

9. Polioptila | 3 | Central and Southern | Neotropical

| | U. States |

| | |

CINCLIDÆ. | | |

10. Cinclus | 1 | Rocky Mountains and | Andes, Palæarctic

| | British America |

| | |

TROGLODYTIDÆ. | | |

11. Troglodytes | 3 | N. America | Neotropical,

| | | Palæarctic

12. Thryophilus | 1 | N. W. America | Neotropical

13. Thryothorus | 3 | All N. America | Neotropical

14. Cistothorus | 2 | N. America | Neotropical

(Campylorhynchus| 1 | Gila and Rio Grande) | Neotropical genus

15. _Salpinctes_ | 1 | Rocky Mountains to |

| | Oregon |

16. _Catherpes_ | 1 | Gila and Colorado |

| | |

CHAMÆIDÆ. | | |

17. _Chamæa_ | 1 | California |

| | |

CERTHIIDÆ. | | |

18. Certhia | 2 | All United States and | Palæarctic, Guatemala

| | Canada |

| | |

SITTIDÆ. | | |

19. Sitta | 5 | All United States and | Palæarctic, Mexico

| | Canada |

| | |

PARIDÆ. | | |

20. Parus | 8 | All United States and | Palæarc., Orien.,

| | Canada | Mexico

21. Lophophanes | 4 | All United States | Palæarctic, Mexico

22. _Psaltriparus_ | 3 | Central & Western | Mexico and Guatemala

| | N. America |

23. _Auriparus_ | 1 | Rio Grande Valley |

| | |

LANIIDÆ. | | |

24. Lanius | 4 | All N. America | Palæarc., Ethio.,

| | | Orient.

| | |

CORVIDÆ. | | |

25. Perisoreus | 1 | Canada and Rocky | Palæarctic

| | Mountains |

26. Cyanocitta | 9 | All United States and | Neotropical

| | to Canada |

27. _Gymnokitta_ | 1 | Central and N. W. |

| | States |

28. _Picicorvus_ | 1 | Central and Western |

| | States to Sitka |

29. Pica | 2 | Central and Western | Palæarctic

| | States to Arctic |

| | Ocean |

30. Corvus | 7 | All N. America | Cosmop., excl.

| | | S. Amer.

| | |

COEREBIDÆ. | | |

(Certhiola | 1 | Florida; summer | Neotropical genus

| | migrant) |

| | |

MNIOTILTIDÆ. | | |

31. _Mniotilta_ | 1 | Eastern States | Antilles, Andes of

| | | Columbia (migrant)

32. Parula | 1 | Eastern States and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

33. Protonotaria | 1 | Ohio and southwards | Neotrop. to Venezuela

34._Helminthophaga_| 8 | All N. America | Mexico to Columbia

35. _Helmintherus_ | 2 | S. and E. States to | Mexico to Veragua

| | Canada |

36. Perissoglossa | 1 | Eastern United States | Antilles

37. Dendroeca | 22 | All N. America | Mex. to Ecuador &

| | | Chili

38. _Oporornis_ | 2 | Eastern States | Guatemala and Panama

39. Geothlypis | 4 | All N. America | Neotropical

40. Setophaga | 2 | E. States & Canadian | Neotropical

| | sub-region |

41. _Myiodioctes_ | 5 | United States and | Mex. to Columb.

| | Canada | (migr.)

42. Siurus | 3 | S. and E. States to | Mexico to Columbia

| | Canada |

43. _Icteria_ | 2 | E. and Central States | Mexico to Costa Rica

| | to Canada |

| | |

VIREONIDÆ. | | |

44. Vireosylvia | 7 | All N. America |Antilles and Venezuela

45. Vireo | 6 | All United States | Antilles and Costa

| | | Rica

| | |

AMPELIDÆ. | | |

46. Ampelis | 2 | All N. America | Palæarctic, Guatemala

47. _Phænopepla_ | 1 |Gila and Lower Colorado| Mexico

| | |

HIRUNDINIDÆ. | | |

48. Hirundo | 3 | All N. America | Almost cosmopolite

49. Petrochelidon | 1 | All N. America | Neotropical

50. Cotyle | 1 | All N. America | All regs. but

| | | Australian

51. Stelgidopteryx | 1 | Southern States | Neotropical

52. Progne | 1 | All N. America | Neotropical

| | |

ICTERIDÆ. | | |

53. Icterus | 7 | All United States and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

54. Dolichonyx | 1 | Eastern States and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

55. Molothrus | 1 | All United States and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

56. Agelæus | 3 | All United Slates and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

57._Xanthocephalus_| 1 | The whole region | Mexico

58. Sturnella | 2 | All United States and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

59. _Scolecophagus_| 2 | All United States and | Mexico

| | Canada |

60. Quiscalus | 4 | S. and E. States to | Mexico to Venezuela

| | Labrador |

| | |

TANAGRIDÆ. | | |

61. Pyranga | 4 | United Stales and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

| | |

FRINGILLIDÆ. | | |

62. Chrysomitris | 7 | The whole region | Neotropical,

| | | Palæarctic

63. Coccothraustes | 1 | W. and N. W. America | Palæarctic, Guatemala

64. Embernagra | 1 |Rocky Mountain district| Neotropical

65. _Pipilo_ | 9 | All N. America | Mexico and Guatemala

66. _Junco_ | 5 | All United States | Mexico and Guatemala

67. Zonotrichia | 5 | The whole region | Neotropical

68. _Melospiza_ | 7 | All United States to | Mexico and Guatemala

| | Sitka |

69. _Spizella_ | 6 | N. America | Mexico and Guatemala

70. _Passerella_ | 3 | The whole region | Northern Asia

71. _Passerculus_ | 6 | The whole region | Mexico and Guatemala

72. _Pooecetes_ | 1 | All United States | Mexico

73. _Ammodromus_ | 3 | All United States | Mexico and Guatemala

74. Coturniculus | 3 |E. and N. of N. America| Neotropical

75. Peucæa | 3 | S. Atlantic States and| Mexico

| | California |

76. _Cyanospiza_ | 5 | All United States to | Central American

| | Canada |

77. Poospiza | 2 | California and S. | Neotropical

| | Central States |

78. Carpodacus | 5 | The whole region | Mexico, Palæarctic

79. Cardinalis | 1 | S. and S. Central | Mexico to Venezuela

| | States |

80. _Pyrrhuloxia_ | 1 | Texas and Rio Grande |

81. Guiraca | 1 | Southern States | Neotropical

82. Hedymeles | 2 | All United States | Mexico to Columbia

(Spermophila | 1 | Texas) | Neotropical genus

83. Loxia | 2 | N. of Pennsylvania | Palæarctic

84. Pinicola | 1 | Boreal America | Palæarctic

85. Linota | 2 | E. and N. of N. | Palæarctic

| | America |

86. Leucosticte | 4 | Alaska to Utah | Palæarctic

87. _Calamospiza_ | 1 | Arizona and Texas to | Mexico

| | Mexico |

88. _Chondestes_ | 1 | Western, Cen., & | Mexico

| | Southern States |

89. Euspiza | 2 | S. Eastern States | Palæarc., Columb.

| | | (mig.)

90. Plectrophanes | 6 | Boreal America and E. | Palæarctic

| | side of Rocky |

| | Mountains |

91. _Centronyx_ | 1 | Mouth of Yellowstone |

| | River |

| | |

ALAUDIDÆ. | | |

92. Otocorys | 1 | High central plains to| Palæarc., Mexico,

| | E. States and Canada| Andes of Columbia

| | |

MOTACILLIDÆ. | | |

93. Anthus | 1 | The whole region | Cosmopolite

94. _Neocorys_ | 1 | Nebraska |

| | |

TYRANNIDÆ. | | |

95. Sayornis | 3 | E. States to Canada, | Mexico to Ecuador

| | California |

(Pyrocephalus | 1 | Gila and Rio Grande) | Neotropical

96. Empidonax | 7 | The whole region | Mexico to Ecuador

97. Contopus | 3 | N. and E. of Rocky | Mexico to Amazonia

| | Mountains |

98. Myiarchus | 2 | E. and W. coasts and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

99. _Empidias_ | 1 | Eastern States | Mexico

100. Tyrannus | 4 | All United States to | Neotropical

| | Canada |

(Milvulus | 1 | Texas) | Neotropical genus

| | |

PICARIÆ. | | |

PICIDÆ. | | |

101. Picoides | 3 | Arctic zone and Rocky | Palæarctic

| | Mounts. |

102. Picus | 6 | All United States and | All regs. but Eth.

| | Canada | & Aus.

103. _Sphyrapicus_ | 6 | Brit. Columbia and | Mexico and Guatemala

| | Pennsylvania |

| | southwards |

104. Campephilus | 2 | United States and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

105. _Hylatomus_ | 1 | E. and W. States and |

| | Canada |

106. Centurus | 3 | The whole region | Mexico to Venezuela

107. Melanerpes | 3 | United States and | Neotropical

| | S. Canada |

108. Colaptes | 3 | United States and | Neotropical

| | Canada |

| | |

CUCULIDÆ. | | |

109. Crotophaga | 2 | E. States from | Neotropical

| | Pennsylvania S. |

110. Coccyzus | 3 | S. E. and Cen. States | Neotropical

| | to Canada |

111. Geococcyx | 1 | California to New Mex.| Guatemala

| | & Texas |

| | |

ALCEDINIDÆ. | | |

112. Ceryle | 2 | The whole region, | Neotropical S.

| | | Palæarctic, Oriental

| | |

CAPRIMULGIDÆ. | | |

113. Chordeiles | 3 | All United States to | Neotropical

| | Canada |

114. Antrostomus | 3 | All United States to | Neotropical

| | Canada |

| | |

CYPSELIDÆ. | | |

115. Nephoecetes | 1 | N. W. America Jamaica |

116. Chætura | 2 | All U. States & | Almost cosmopolite

| | British Columbia |

| | |

TROCHILIDÆ. | | |

117. _Trochilus_ | 2 | The whole region | Mexico to Veragua

| | | (? mi.)

118. Selasphorus | 2 | W. coast and Centre | Mexico to Veragua

119. _Atthis_ | 2 | California and | Mexico to Guatemala

| | Colorado Valley |

| | |

PSITTACI. | | |

CONURIDÆ. | | |

120. Conurus | 1 | S. and S. E. States | Neotropical

| | |

COLUMBÆ. | | |

COLUMBIDÆ. | | |

121. Columba | 3 | W. and Central States | All regs. but

| | to Canada | Australian

122. _Ectopistes_ | 1 | E. coast to Cen. |

| | plains, Canada and |

| | British Columbia |

123. Melopelia | 1 | W. and S. Central | Neotropical

| | States |

124. Zenaidura | 1 | All United States to | Mexico to Veragua

| | Canada |

125. Chæmepelia | 1 | California and S. E. | Neotropical

| | States |

| | |

GALLINÆ. | | |

TETRAONIDÆ. | | |

126. Cyrotonyx | 1 | S. Central States | Mexico and Guatemala

127. Ortyx | 5 | All United States and | Mexico to Honduras

| | to Canada | and Costa Rica

128. Callipepla | 1 | California | Mexico

129. _Lophortyx_ | 2 | Arizona and California|

130. _Oreortyx_ | 1 | California and Oregon |

131. Tetrao | 3 | N. and N. W. America | Palæarctic

132. _Centrocercus_ | 1 | Rocky Mountains |

133. _Pediocætes_ | 2 | N. and N. W. America |

134. _Cupidonia_ | 1 | E. & N. Cen. States |

| | and Canada |

135. Bonasa | 1 | N. United States and | Palæarctic

| | Canada |

136. Lagopus | 4 | Arctic zone and to 39°| Palæarctic

| | N. Lat. in Rocky |

| | Mountains |

| | |

PHASIANIDÆ. | | |

137. _Meleagris_ | 2 | E. and Central States | Mexico, Honduras

| | to Canada |

CRACIDÆ. | | |

(Ortalida | 1 | New Mexico) | Neotropical genus

| | |

ACCIPITRES. | | |

VULTURIDÆ. | | |

_Sub-Family_ | | |

(CATHARTINÆ.) | | |

138. Catharista | 1 | United States to | Neotropical

| | 40° N. Lat. |

139. Psuedogryphis | 2 | United States to | Neotropical

| | 49° N. Lat. |

| | |

FALCONIDÆ. | | |

140. Polyborus | 1 | S. States to Florida | Neotropical

| | & California |

141. Circus | 1 | All N. America | Nearly cosmopolite

142. Antenor | 2 | California and Texas | Neotropical

143. Astur | 1 | All N. America | Almost cosmopolite

144. Accipiter | 3 | All temperate | Almost cosmopolite

| | N. America |

145. Tachytriorchis | 1 | New Mexico to | Neotropical

| | California |

146. Buteo | 12 | All N. America | All regs. but

| | | Australian

147. Archibuteo | 3 | All N. America N. | Palæarctic

148. Asturina | 1 | S. E. States | Neotropical

149. Aquila | 1 | The whole region | Palæarc., Ethiop.,

| | | Indian

150. Haliæetus | 2 | All N. America | All regs. but

| | | Neotropical

151. Nauclerus | 1 | E. coast to | Neotropical

| | Pennsylvania and |

| | Wisconsin |

(Rostrhamus | 1 | Florida) | Neotropical

152. Elanus | 1 | Southern and Western | Tropical regions

| | States |

153. Ictinia | 1 | Southern States | Neotropical

154. Falco | 7 | The whole region | Almost cosmopolite

155. Hierofalco | 2 | N. of N. America | N. Palæarctic

156. Cerchneis | 1 | All N. America | Almost cosmopolite

| | |

PANDIONIDÆ. | | |

157. Pandion | 1 | Temperate N. | America Cosmopolite

| | |

STRIGIDÆ. | | |

158. Surnia | 1 | Arctic & N. Temperate | N. Palæarctic

| | America |

159. Nyctea | 1 | S. Carolina to | N. Palæarctic

| | Greenland |

160. Glaucidium | 1 | Oregon and California | Neotropical,

| | | Palæarctic

161. _Micrathene_ | 1 | Arizona and New Mexico| Mexico

162. Pholeoptynx | 1 | N. W. America, Texas | Neotropical

163. Bubo | 1 | All N. America | All regs. but

| | | Australian

164. Scops | 2 | The whole region | Almost cosmopolite

165. Syrnium | 2 | E. States, California,| All regs. but

| | Canada | Australian

166. Asio | 2 | The whole region | All regs. but

| | | Australian

167. Nyctale | 3 | All N. America | Palæarctic

168. Strix | 1 | Temperate N. America | Almost cosmopolite

_Peculiar or very Characteristic Genera of Wading and Swimming Birds._

GRALLÆ | | |

SCOLOPACIDÆ. | | |

Micropelma | 1 | N. America | Andes to Chili

_Philohela_ | 1 | Eastern States to |

| | Canada |

| | |

CHARADRIIDÆ. | | |

Aphriza | 1 | W. coast of America | West of S. America

| | |

ANSERES. | | |

ANATIDÆ. | | |

Aix | 1 | N. America | China

Bucephala | 4 | N. America | Europe

Oedemia | 3 | N. America | Europe

Harelda | 1 | Arctic | Arctic Seas

Somateria | 5 | Arctic | North Palæarctic

_Camptolæmus_ | 1 | N. E. America |

| | (? extinct) |

| | |

LARIDÆ. | | |

_Creagrus_ | 1 | California and |

| | N. Pacific coasts |

{154}CHAPTER XVI.

SUMMARY OF THE PAST CHANGES AND GENERAL RELATIONS OF THE SEVERAL REGIONS.

Having now closed our survey of the animal life of the whole earth--a

survey which has necessarily been encumbered with a multiplicity of

detail--we proceed to summarize the general conclusions at which we have

arrived, with regard to the past history and mutual relations of the great

regions into which we have divided the land surface of the globe.

All the palæontological, no less than the geological and physical evidence,

at present available, points to the great land masses of the Northern

Hemisphere as being of immense antiquity, and as the area in which the

higher forms of life were developed. In going back through the long series

of the Tertiary formations, in Europe, Asia, and North America, we find a

continuous succession of vertebrate forms, including all the highest types

now existing or that have existed on the earth. These extinct animals

comprise ancestors or forerunners of all the chief forms now living in the

Northern Hemisphere; and as we go back farther and farther into the past,

we meet with ancestral forms of those types also, which are now either

confined to, or specially characteristic of, the land masses of the

Southern Hemisphere. Not only do we find that elephants, and rhinoceroses,

and hippopotami, were once far more abundant in Europe than they are now in

the tropics, but we also find that the apes of West Africa and Malaya, the

lemurs of Madagascar, the Edentata of Africa and South America, and the

{155}Marsupials of America and Australia, were all represented in Europe

(and probably also in North America) during the earlier part of the

Tertiary epoch. These facts, taken in their entirety, lead us to conclude

that, during the whole of the Tertiary and perhaps during much of the

Secondary periods, the great land masses of the earth were, as now,

situated in the Northern Hemisphere; and that here alone were developed the

successive types of vertebrata from the lowest to the highest. In the

Southern Hemisphere there appear to have been three considerable and very

ancient land masses, varying in extent from time to time, but always

keeping distinct from each other, and represented, more or less completely,

by Australia, South Africa, and South America of our time. Into these

flowed successive waves of life, as they each in turn became temporarily

united with some part of the northern land. Australia appears to have had

but one such union, perhaps during the middle or latter part of the

Secondary epoch, when it received the ancestors of its Monotremata and

Marsupials, which it has since developed into a great variety of forms. The

South African and South American lands, on the other hand, appear each to

have had several successive unions and separations, allowing first of the

influx of low forms only (Edentata, Insectivora and Lemurs); subsequently

of Rodents and small Carnivora, and, latest of all, of the higher types of

Primates, Carnivora and Ungulata.

During the whole of the Tertiary period, at least, the Northern Hemisphere

appears to have been divided, as now, into an Eastern and a Western

continent; always approximating and sometimes united towards the north, and

then admitting of much interchange of their respective faunas; but on the

whole keeping distinct, and each developing its own special family and

generic types, of equally high grade, and generally belonging to the same

Orders. During the Eocene and Miocene periods, the distinction of the

Palæarctic and Nearctic regions was better marked than it is now; as is

shown by the floras no less than by the faunas of those epochs. Dr.

Newberry, in his Report on the Cretaceous and Tertiary floras of the

Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, states, that although the Miocene flora of

Central North {156}America corresponds generally with that of the European

Miocene, yet many of the tropical, and especially the Australian types,

such as _Hakea_ and _Dryandra_, are absent. Owing to the recent discovery

of a rich Cretaceous flora in North America, probably of the same age as

that of Aix-la-Chapelle in Europe, we are able to continue the comparison;

and it appears, that at this early period the difference was still more

marked. The predominant feature of the European Cretaceous flora seems to

have been the abundance of Proteaceæ, of which seven genera now living in

Australia or the Cape of Good Hope have been recognised, besides others

which are extinct. There are also several species of _Pandanus_, or

screw-pine, now confined to the tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere, and

along with these, oaks, pines, and other more temperate forms. The North

American Cretaceous flora, although far richer than that of Europe,

contains no Proteaceæ or _Pandani_, but immense numbers of forest trees of

living and extinct genera. Among the former we have oaks, beeches, willows,

planes, alders, dog-wood, and cypress; together with such American forms as

magnolias, sassafras, and liriodendrons. There are also a few not now found

in America, as _Araucaria_ and _Cinnamomum_, the latter still living in

Japan. This remarkable flora has been found over a wide extent of

country--New Jersey, Alabama, Kansas, and near the sources of the Missouri

in the latitude of Quebec--so that we can hardly impute its peculiarly

temperate character to the great elevation of so large an area. The

intervening Eocene flora approximates closely, in North America, to that of

the Miocene period; while in Europe it seems to have been fully as tropical

in character as that of the preceding Cretaceous period; fruits of _Nipa_,

_Pandanus_, _Anona_, _Acacia_, and many Proteaceæ, occurring in the London

clay at the mouth of the Thames.

These facts appear, at first sight, to be inconsistent, unless we suppose

the climates of Europe and North America to have been widely different in

these early times; but they may perhaps be harmonised, on the supposition

of a more uniform and a somewhat milder climate then prevailing over the

whole Northern Hemisphere; the contrast in the vegetation of these

countries {157}being due to a radical difference of type, and therefore not

indicative of climate. The early European flora seems to have been a

portion of that which now exists only in the tropical and sub-tropical

lands of the Eastern Hemisphere; and, as much of this flora still survives

in Australia, Tasmania, Japan, and the Cape of Good Hope, it does not

necessarily imply more than a warm and equable temperate climate. The early

North American flora, on the other hand, seems to have been essentially the

same in type as that which now exists there, and which, in the Miocene

period, was well represented in Europe; and it is such as now flourishes

best in the warmer parts of the United States. But whatever conclusion we

may arrive at on the question of climate, there can be no doubt as to the

distinctness of the floras of the ancient Nearctic and Palæarctic regions;

and the view derived from our study of their existing and extinct

faunas--that these two regions have, in past times, been more clearly

separated than they are now--receives strong support from the unexpected

evidence now obtained as to the character and mutations of their vegetable

forms, during so vast an epoch as is comprised in the whole duration of the

Tertiary period.

The general phenomena of the distribution of living animals, combined with

the evidence of extinct forms, lead us to conclude that the Palæarctic

region of early Tertiary times was, for the most part, situated beyond the

tropics, although it probably had a greater southward extension than at the

present time. It certainly included much of North Africa, and perhaps

reached far into what is now the Sahara; while a southward extension of its

central mass may have included the Abyssinian highlands, where some truly

Palæarctic forms are still found. This is rendered probable by the fossils

of Perim Island a little further east, which show that the characteristic

Miocene fauna of South Europe and North India prevailed so far within the

tropics. There existed, however, at the extreme eastern and western limits

of the region, two extensive equatorial land-areas, our Indo-Malayan and

West African sub-regions--both of which must have been united for more or

less considerable periods with the northern continent. They would then have

received {158}from it such of the higher vertebrates as were best adapted

for the peculiar climatal and organic conditions which everywhere prevail

near the equator; and these would be preserved, under variously modified

forms, when they had ceased to exist in the less favourable and constantly

deteriorating climate of the north. At later epochs, both these equatorial

lands became united to some part of the great South African continent (then

including Madagascar), and we thus have explained many of the similarities

presented by the faunas of these distant, and generally very different

countries.

During the Miocene period, when a subtropical climate prevailed over much

of Europe and Central Asia, there would be no such marked contrast as now

prevails between temperate and tropical zones; and at this time much of our

Oriental region, perhaps, formed a hardly separable portion of the great

Palæarctic land. But when, from unknown causes, the climate of Europe

became less genial, and when the elevation of the Himalayan chain and the

Mongolian plateau caused an abrupt difference of climate on the northern

and southern sides of that great mountain barrier, a tropical and a

temperate region were necessarily formed; and many of the animals which

once roamed over the greater part of the older and more extensive region,

now became restricted to its southern or northern divisions respectively.

Then came the great change we have already described (vol. i. p. 288),

opening the newly-formed plains of Central Africa to the incursions of the

higher forms of Europe; and following on this, a still further

deterioration of climate, resulting in that marked contrast between

temperate and tropical faunas, which is now one of the most prominent

features in the distribution of animal as well as of vegetable forms.

It is not necessary to go into any further details here, as we have

already, in our discussion of the origin of the fauna of the several

regions, pointed out what changes most probably occurred in each case.

These details are, however, to a great extent speculative; and they must

remain so till we obtain as much knowledge of the extinct faunas and past

geological history of the southern lands, as we have of those of Europe and

North {159}America. But the broad conclusions at which we have now arrived

seem to rest on a sufficiently extensive basis of facts; and they lead us

to a clearer conception of the mutual relations and comparative importance

of the several regions than could be obtained at an earlier stage of our

inquiries.

If our views of the origin of the several regions are correct, it is clear

that no mere binary division--into north and south, or into east and

west--can be altogether satisfactory, since at the dawn of the Tertiary

period we still find our six regions, or what may be termed the rudiments

of them, already established. The north and south division truly represents

the fact, that the great northern continents are the seat and birth-place

of all the higher forms of life, while the southern continents have derived

the greater part, if not the whole, of their vertebrate fauna from the

north; but it implies the erroneous conclusion, that the chief southern

lands--Australia and South America--are more closely related to each other

than to the northern continent. The fact, however, is that the fauna of

each has been derived, independently, and perhaps at very different times,

from the north, with which they therefore have a true genetic relation;

while any intercommunion between themselves has been comparatively recent

and superficial, and has in no way modified the great features of animal

life in each. The east and west division, represents--according to our

views--a more fundamental diversity; since we find the northern continent

itself so divided in the earliest Eocene, and even in Cretaceous times;

while we have the strongest proof that South America was peopled from the

Nearctic, and Australia and Africa from the Palæarctic region: hence, the

Eastern and Western Hemispheres are the two great branches of the tree of

life of our globe. But this division, taken by itself, would obscure the

facts--firstly, of the close relation and parallelism of the Nearctic and

Palæarctic regions, not only now but as far back as we can clearly trace

them in the past; and, secondly, of the existing radical diversity of the

Australian region from the rest of the Eastern Hemisphere.

Owing to the much greater extent of the old Palæarctic region (including

our Oriental), and the greater diversity of {160}Mammalia it appears to

have produced, we can have little doubt that here was the earliest seat of

the development of the vertebrate type; and probably of the higher forms of

insects and land-molluscs. Whether the Nearctic region ever formed one mass

with it, or only received successive immigrations from it by northern

land-connections both in an easterly and westerly direction, we cannot

decide; but the latter seems the most probable supposition. In any case, we

must concede the first rank to the Palæarctic and Oriental regions, as

representing the most important part of what seems always to have been the

Great Continent of the earth, and the source from which all the other

regions were supplied with the higher forms of life. These once formed a

single great region, which has been since divided into a temperate and a

tropical portion, now sufficiently distinct; while the Nearctic region has,

by deterioration of climate, suffered a considerable diminution of

productive area, and has in consequence lost a number of its more

remarkable forms. The two temperate regions have thus come to resemble each

other more than they once did, while the Oriental retains more of the

zoological aspect of the great northern regions of Miocene times. The

Ethiopian, from having been once an insular region, where lower types of

vertebrates alone prevailed, has been so overrun with higher types from the

old Palæarctic and Oriental lands that it now rivals, or even surpasses,

the Oriental region in its representation of the ancient fauna of the great

northern continent. Both of our tropical regions of the Eastern Hemisphere

possess faunas which are, to some extent, composite, being made up in

different proportions of the productions of the northern and southern

continents,--the former prevailing largely in the Oriental, while the

latter constitutes an important feature in the Ethiopian fauna. The

Neotropical region has probably undergone great fluctuations in early

times; but it was, undoubtedly, for long periods completely isolated, and

then developed the Edentate type of Mammals and the Formicaroid type of

Passerine birds into a variety of forms, comparable with the diversified

Marsupials of Australia, and typical Passeres of the Eastern Hemisphere.

{161}It has, however, received successive infusions of higher types from

the north, which now mingle in various degrees with its lower forms. At an

early period it must have received a low form of Primates, which has been

developed into the two peculiar families of American monkeys; while its

llamas, tapirs, deer, and peccaries, came in at a later date, and its

opossums and extinct horses probably among the latest. The Australian

region alone, after having been united with the great northern continent at

a very early date (probably during the Secondary period) has ever since

remained more or less completely isolated; and thus exhibits the

development of a primeval type of mammal, almost wholly uninfluenced by any

incursions of a later and higher type. In this respect it is unique among

all the great regions of the earth.

We see, then, that each of our six regions has had a history of its own,

the main outlines of which we have been able to trace with tolerable

certainty. Each of them is now characterised--as it seems to have been in

all past time of which we have any tolerably full record--by well-marked

zoological features; while all are connected and related in the complex

modes we have endeavoured to unravel. To combine any two or more of these

regions, on account of existing similarities which are, for the most part,

of recent origin, would obscure some of the most important and interesting

features of their past history and present condition. And it seems no less

impracticable to combine the whole into groups of higher rank; since it has

been shown that there are two opposing modes of doing this, and that each

of them represents but one aspect of a problem, which can only be solved by

giving equal attention to all its aspects.

For reasons which have been already stated, and which are sufficiently

obvious, we have relied almost exclusively on the distribution of living

and extinct mammalia, in arriving at these conclusions. But we believe they

will apply equally to elucidate the phenomena presented by the distribution

of all terrestrial organisms, when combined with a careful consideration of

the {162}various means of dispersal of the different groups, and the

comparative longevity of their species and genera. Even insects, which are

perhaps of all animals the farthest removed from mammalia in this respect,

agree, in the great outlines of their distribution, with the vertebrate

orders. The Regions are admittedly the same, or nearly the same for both;

and the discrepancies that occur are of a nature which can be explained by

two undoubted facts--the greater antiquity, and the greater facilities for

dispersal, of insects.

But this principle, if sound, must be carried farther, and be applied to

plants also. There are not wanting indications that this may be

successfully done; and it seems not improbable, that the reason why

botanists have hitherto failed to determine, with any unanimity, which are

the most natural phytological regions, and to work out any connected theory

of the migrations of plants, is, because they have not been furnished with

the clue to the past changes of the great land masses, which could only be

arrived at by such an examination of the past and present distribution of

the higher animals as has been here attempted. The difficulties in the way

of the study of the distribution of plants, from this point of view, will

be undoubtedly very great; owing to the unusual facilities for distribution

many of them possess, and the absence of any group which might take the

place of the mammalia among animals, and serve as a guide and standard for

the rest. We cannot expect the regions to be so well defined in the case of

plants as in that of animals; and there are sure to be many anomalies and

discrepancies, which will require long study to unravel. The Six Great

Regions here adopted, are however, as a whole, very well characterised by

their vegetable forms. The floras of tropical America, of Australia, of

South Africa, and of Indo-Malaya, stand out with as much individuality as

do the faunas; while the plants of the Palæarctic and Nearctic regions,

exhibit resemblances and diversities, of a character not unlike those found

among the animals.

This is not a mere question of applying to the vegetable kingdom a series

of arbitrary divisions of the earth which have been {163}found useful to

zoologists; for it really involves a fundamental problem in the theory of

evolution. The question we have to answer, is, firstly--whether the

distribution of plants is, like that of animals, mainly and primarily

dependent on the past revolutions of the earth's surface; or, whether

other, and altogether distinct causes, have had a preponderating influence

in determining the range and limits of vegetable forms; and,

secondly--whether those revolutions have been, in their general outlines,

correctly interpreted by means of a study of the distribution and

affinities of the higher animals. The first question is one for botanists

alone to answer; but, on the second point, the author ventures to hope for

an affirmative reply, from such of his readers as will weigh carefully the

facts and arguments he has adduced.

The remaining part of this volume, will consist, of a systematic review of

the distribution of each family of animals, and an application of the

principles already established to elucidate the chief phenomena they

present. The present chapter must, therefore, be considered as the

conclusion of the argumentative and theoretical part of the present work;

but it must be read in connection with the various discussions in Parts II.

and III., in which the conclusions to be drawn from the several groups of

facts have been successively given;--and especially in connection with the

general observations at the end of each of the six chapters on the

Zoological Regions.

The hypothetical view, as to the more recent of the great Geographical

changes of the Earth's surface, here set forth, is not the result of any

preconceived theory, but has grown out of a careful study of the facts

accumulated, and has led to a considerable modification of the author's

previous views. It may be described, as an application of the general

theory of Evolution, to solve the problem of the distribution of animals;

but it also furnishes some independent support to that theory, both by

showing what a great variety of curious facts are explained by its means,

and by answering some of the objections, {164}which have been founded on

supposed difficulties in the distribution of animals in space and time.

It also illustrates and supports the geological doctrine, of the general

permanence of our great continents and oceans, by showing how many facts in

the distribution of animals can only be explained and understood on such a

supposition; and it exhibits, in a striking manner, the enormous influence

of the Glacial epoch, in determining the existing zoological features of

the various continents.

And, lastly, it furnishes a more consistent and intelligible idea than has

yet been reached by any other mode of investigation, of all the more

important changes of the earth's surface that have probably occurred during

the entire Tertiary period; and of the influence of these changes, in

bringing about the general features, as well as many of the more

interesting details and puzzling anomalies, of the Geographical

Distribution of Animals.

PART IV.

_GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY:_

_A SYSTEMATIC SKETCH OF THE CHIEF FAMILIES OF LAND ANIMALS IN THEIR

GEOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS._

{167}INTRODUCTION.

In the preceding part of our work, we have discussed the geographical

distribution of animals from the point of view of the geographer; taking

the different regions of the earth in succession, and giving as full an

account as our space would permit of their chief forms of animal life. Now,

we proceed from the standpoint of the systematic zoologist; taking in

succession each of the families with which we deal, and giving an account

of the distribution, both of the entire family and, as far as practicable,

of each of the genera of which it is composed. As in the former part, our

mode of treatment led us to speculate on the past changes of the earth's

surface; so here we shall endeavour to elucidate the past migrations of

animals, and thus, to some extent, account for their actual distribution.

The tabular headings, showing the range of the family in each region, will

enable the reader to determine at a glance the general distribution of the

group, as soon as he has familiarised himself, by a study of our general

and regional maps, with the limits of the regions and sub-regions, and the

figures (1 to 4) by which the latter are indicated. Much pains have been

taken, to give the number of the known genera and species in each family,

correctly; but these numbers must, in most cases, only be looked upon as

approximations; because, owing to constant accessions of fresh material on

the one hand, and the discovery that many supposed species are only

varieties, on the other, such statistics are in a continual state of

fluctuation. In the number of genera there is the greatest uncertainty; as

will be seen by the two sets of numbers sometimes given, which denote the

genera according to different modern authorities.

{168}There is also a considerable difference in the dependence to be placed

on the details given in the different classes of animals. In Mammalia and

Birds some degree of accuracy has, it is hoped, been attained; the

classification of these groups being much advanced, and the materials for

their study ample. In Reptiles this is not the case, as there is no

recently published work dealing with the whole subject, or with either of

the larger orders. An immense number of new species and new genera of

snakes and lizards, have been described in the last twenty years; and Dr.

Günther--our greatest authority on reptiles in this country--has kindly

assisted me in incorporating such of these as are most trustworthy, in a

general system; but until entire Orders have been described or catalogued

on a uniform plan, nothing more than a general approximation to the truth

can be arrived at. Still, so many of the groups are well defined, and have

a clearly limited distribution, that some interesting and valuable

comparisons may be made.

For Fishes, the valuable "Catalogue" of Dr. Günther was available, and it

has rarely been attempted to go beyond it. A large number of new species

have since been described, in all parts of the world; but it is impossible

to say how many of these are really new, or what genera they actually

belong to. The part devoted to this Class is, therefore, practically a

summary of Dr. Günther's Catalogue; and it is believed that the discoveries

since made will not materially invalidate the conclusions to be drawn from

such a large number of species, which have been critically examined and

classified on a uniform system by one of our most able naturalists. When a

supplement to this catalogue is issued, it will be easier to make the

necessary alterations in distribution, than if a mass of untrustworthy

materials had been mixed up with it.

For Insects, excellent materials are furnished, in the Catalogue of Mr.

Kirby for Butterflies and in that of Drs. Gemminger and Harold for

Coleoptera. I have also made use of some recently published memoirs on the

Insects of Japan and St. Helena, and a few other recent works; and have, I

believe, elaborated a more extensive series of facts to illustrate the

distribution of insects, {169}than has been made use of by any previous

writer. Several discussions on the bearing of the facts of insect

distribution, will also be found under the several Regions, in the

preceding part of this work.

Terrestrial Mollusca form a group, as to the treatment of which I have most

misgivings; owing to my almost entire ignorance of Malacology, and the

great changes recently made in the classification of shells. There is also

much uncertainty as to genera and sub-genera, which is very puzzling to one

who merely wishes to get at general results. Finding it impossible to

incorporate the new matter with the old, or to harmonise the different

classifications of modern conchologists, I thought it better to confine

myself to the standard works of Martens and Pfeiffer, with such additions

of new species as I could make without fear of going far wrong. In some

cases I have made use of recent monographs--especially on the shells of

Europe, North America, the West Indian Islands, and the Sandwich Islands;

and have, I venture to hope, not fallen into much error in the general

conclusions at which I have arrived.

{170}CHAPTER XVII.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FAMILIES AND GENERA OF MAMMALIA.

_Order I.--PRIMATES._

FAMILY 1.--SIMIIDÆ. (4 Genera, 12 Species).

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Simiidæ, or Anthropoid Apes, comprehend those forms of the monkey-tribe

which, in general organization, approach nearest to man. They inhabit the

tropics of the Old World, and are most abundant near the equator; but they

are limited to certain districts, being quite unknown in eastern and

southern Africa, and the whole peninsula of Hindostan.

The genus _Troglodytes_ (or _Mimetes_, as it is sometimes named)

comprehends the chimpanzee and gorilla. It is confined to the West African

sub-region, being found on the coast about 12° North and South of the

equator, from the Gambia to Benguela, and as far inland as the great

equatorial forests extend. There are perhaps other species of chimpanzee;

since Livingstone met with what he supposed to be a new species in the

forest region west of Lake Tanganyika, while Dr. Schweinfurth found one in

the country beyond the western watershed of the Nile. The gorilla is

confined within narrower limits on and near the equator.

{171}We have to pass over more than 70° of longitude before we again meet

with Anthropoid Apes, in the northern part of Sumatra--where a specimen of

the orang-utan (_Simia satyrus_) now in the Calcutta Museum, was obtained

by Dr. Abel, and described by him in the _Asiatic Researches_, vol.

xv.--and in Borneo, from which latter island almost all the specimens in

European museums have been derived. There are supposed to be two species of

_Simia_ in Borneo, a larger and a smaller; but their distinctness is not

admitted by all naturalists. Both appear to be confined to the swampy

forests near the north, west, and south coasts.

The Gibbons, or long-armed apes, forming the genus _Hylobates_, (7 species)

are found in all the large islands of the Indo-Malayan sub-region, except

the Philippines; and also in Sylhet and Assam south of the Brahmaputra

river, eastward to Cambodja and South China to the west of Canton, and in

the island of Hainan.

The Siamang (_Siamanga syndactyla_) presents some anatomical peculiarities,

and has the second and third toes united to the last joint, but in general

form and structure it does not differ from _Hylobates_. It is the largest

of the long-armed apes, and inhabits Sumatra and the Malay peninsula.

FAMILY 2.--SEMNOPITHECIDÆ. (2 Genera, 30 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Semnopithecidæ, are long-tailed monkeys without cheek-pouches, and with

rather rounded faces, the muzzle not being prominent. They have nearly the

same distribution as the last family, but are more widely dispersed in both

Africa and Asia, one species just entering the Palæarctic region.

The Eastern genus _Presbytes_ or _Semnopithecus_ (29 species), is spread

over almost the whole of the Oriental region wherever the forests are

extensive. They extend along the Himalayas to beyond Simla, where a species

has been observed at an altitude of 11,000 {172}feet, playing among

fir-trees laden with snow wreaths. On the west side of India they are not

found to the north of 14° N. latitude. On the east they extend into Arakan,

and to Borneo and Java, but not apparently into Siam or Cambodja. Along the

eastern extension of the Himalayas they again occur in East Thibet; a

remarkable species with a large upturned nose (_S. roxellana_) having been

discovered by Père David at Moupin (about Lat. 32° N.) in the highest

forests, where the winters are severe and last for several months, and

where the vegetation, and the other forms of animal life, are wholly those

of the Palæarctic region. It is very curious that this species should

somewhat resemble the young state of the proboscis monkey (_S. nasalis_),

which inhabits one of the most uniform, damp, and hot climates on the

globe--the river-swamps of Borneo.

_Colobus_, the African genus (11 species), is very closely allied to the

preceding, differing chiefly in the thumb being absent or rudimentary. They

are confined to the tropical regions--Abyssinia on the east, and from the

Gambia to Angola and the island of Fernando Po, on the west.

FAMILY 3.--CYNOPITHECIDÆ. (7 Genera, 67 Species).

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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This family comprehends all the monkeys with cheek pouches, and the

baboons. Some of these have very long tails, some none; some are dog-faced,

others tolerably round-faced; but there are so many transitions from one to

the other, and such a general agreement in structure, that they are now

considered to form a very natural family. Their range is more extensive

than any other family of Quadrumana, since they not only occur in every

part of the Ethiopian and Oriental regions, but enter the Palæarctic region

in the east and west, and the Australian region as far as the islands of

Timor and Batchian. The African genera {173}are _Myiopithecus_,

_Cercopithecus_, _Cercocebus_, _Theropithecus_, and _Cynocephalus_; the

Oriental genera, _Macacus_, and _Cynopithecus_.

_Myiopithecus_ (1 species), consisting of the talapoin monkey of West

Africa, differs from the other African monkeys in the structure of the last

molar tooth; in the large ears, short face, and wide internasal septum; in

this respect, as well as in its grace and gentleness, resembling some of

the American monkeys.

_Cercopithecus_ (24 species), contains all the more graceful and prettily

coloured monkeys of tropical Africa, and comprises the guenons, the

white-nosed, and the green monkeys. They range from the Gambia to the

Congo, and from Abyssinia to the Zambesi.

_Cercocebus_ (5 species), the mangabeys, of West Africa, are very closely

allied to the eastern genus _Macacus_.

_Theropithecus_ (2 species), including the gelada of Abyssinia and an

allied species, resemble in form the baboons, but have the nostrils placed

as in the last genus.

_Cynocephalus_ (10 species), the baboons, are found in all parts of Africa.

They consist of animals which vary much in appearance, but which agree in

having an elongated dog-like muzzle with terminal nostrils, and being of

terrestrial habits. Some of the baboons are of very large size, the

mandrill (_C. maimon_) being only inferior to the orang and gorilla.

_Macacus_ (25 species), is the commonest form of eastern monkey, and is

found in every part of the Oriental region, as well as in North Africa,

Gibraltar, Thibet, North China, and Japan; and one of the commonest

species, _M. cynomolgus_, has extended its range from Java eastward to the

extremity of Timor. The tail varies greatly in length, and in the Gibraltar

monkey (_M. innus_) is quite absent. A remarkable species clothed with very

thick fur, has lately been discovered in the snowy mountains of eastern

Thibet.

_Cynopithecus_ (? 2 sp.).--This genus consists of a black baboon-like Ape,

inhabiting Celebes, Batchian, and the Philippine Islands; but perhaps

introduced by man into the latter islands and into Batchian. It is doubtful

if there is more than one species. The tail of this animal is a fleshy

tubercle, the nostrils as in _Macacus_, but the muzzle is very prominent;

and the {174}development of the maxillary bones into strong lateral ridges

corresponds to the structure of the most typical baboons. This species

extends further east than any other quadrumanous animal.

FAMILY 4.--CEBIDÆ. (10 Genera, 78 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Cebidæ, which comprehend all the larger American Monkeys, differ from

those of the Old World by having an additional molar tooth in each jaw, and

a broad nasal septum; while they have neither cheek-pouches nor ischial

callosities, and the thumb is never completely opposable. Some have

prehensile tails, especially adapting them for an arboreal life. They are

divided into four sub-families,--Cebinæ, Mycetinæ, Pitheciinæ, and

Nyctipithecinæ. The Cebidæ are strictly confined to the forest regions of

tropical America, from the southern part of Mexico to about the parallel of

30° South Latitude. The distribution of the genera is as follows:--

_Sub-family_, Cebinæ.--_Cebus_ (18 sp.), is the largest genus of American

monkeys, and ranges from Costa Rica to Paraguay. They are commonly called

sapajous. _Lagothrix_ (5 sp.), the woolly monkeys, are rather larger and

less active than the preceding; they are confined to the forests of the

Upper Amazon Valley, and along the slopes of the Andes to Venezuela and

Bolivia. _Ateles_ (14 sp.), the spider monkeys, have very long limbs and

tail. They range over the whole area of the family, and occur on the west

side of the Equatorial Andes and on the Pacific coast of Guatemala.

_Eriodes_ (3 sp.), are somewhat intermediate between the last two genera,

and are confined to the eastern parts of Brazil south of the equator. The

three last mentioned genera have very powerful prehensile tails, the end

being bare beneath; whereas the species of _Cebus_ have the tail

{175}completely covered with hair, although prehensile, and therefore not

so perfect a grasping organ.

_Sub-family_, Mycetinæ, consists of but a single genus, _Mycetes_ (10 sp.),

the howling monkeys, characterized by having a hollow bony vessel in the

throat formed by an enlargement of the hyoid bone, which enables them to

produce a wonderful howling noise. They are large, heavy animals, with a

powerful and perfect prehensile tail. They range from East Guatemala to

Paraguay. (Plate XIV., vol. ii., p. 24.)

_Sub-family_, Pitheciinæ, the sakis, have a non-prehensile bushy tail.

_Pithecia_ (7 sp.), has the tail of moderate length; while _Brachiurus_ (5

sp.) has it very short. Both appear to be restricted to the great

equatorial forests of South America.

_Sub-family_, Nyctipithecinæ, are small and elegant monkeys, with long,

hairy, non-prehensile tails. _Nyctipithecus_ (5 sp.), the night-monkeys or

douroucoulis, have large eyes, nocturnal habits, and are somewhat lemurine

in their appearance. They range from Nicaragua to the Amazon and eastern

Peru. _Saimiris_ or _Chrysothrix_ (3 sp.), the squirrel-monkeys, are

beautiful and active little creatures, found in most of the tropical

forests from Costa Rica to Brazil and Bolivia. _Callithrix_ (11 sp.), are

somewhat intermediate between the last two genera, and are found all over

South America from Panama to the southern limits of the great forests.

FAMILY 5.--HAPALIDÆ. (2 Genera, 32 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Hapalidæ, or marmosets, are very small monkeys, which differ from the

true Cebidæ in the absence of one premolar tooth, while they possess the

additional molar tooth; so that while they have the same number of teeth

(thirty-two) as the Old World monkeys, they differ from them even more than

do the {176}Cebidæ. The thumb is not at all opposable, and all the fingers

are armed with sharp claws. The hallux, or thumb-like great toe, is very

small; the tail is long and not prehensile. The two genera _Hapale_ (9

sp.), and _Midas_ (24 sp.), are of doubtful value, though some naturalists

have still further sub-divided them. They are confined to the tropical

forests of South America, and are most abundant in the districts near the

equator.

_Sub-order--LEMUROIDEA._

FAMILY 6.--LEMURIDÆ. (11 Genera, 53 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Lemuridæ, comprehending all the animals usually termed Lemurs and many

of their allies, are divided by Professor Mivart--who has carefully studied

the group--into four sub-families and eleven genera, as follows:--

_Sub-family_ Indrisinæ, consisting of the genus _Indris_ (5 sp.), is

confined to Madagascar.

_Sub-family_ Lemurinæ, contains five genera, viz.:--_Lemur_, (15 sp.);

_Hapalemur_ (2 sp.); _Microcebus_ (4 sp.); _Chirogaleus_ (5 sp.); and

_Lepilemur_ (2 sp.);--all confined to Madagascar.

_Sub-family_ Nycticebinæ, contains four genera, viz.:--_Nycticebus_ (3

sp.)--small, short-tailed, nocturnal animals, called slow-lemurs,--range

from East Bengal to South China, and to Borneo and Java; _Loris_ (1 sp.)--a

very small, tail-less, nocturnal lemur, which inhabits Madras, Malabar, and

Ceylon; _Perodicticus_ (1 sp.)--the potto--a small lemur with almost

rudimentary forefinger, found at Sierra Leone (Plate V., vol. i., p. 264);

_Arctocebus_ (1 sp.)--the angwantibo,--another extraordinary form in which

the forefinger is quite absent and the first toe armed with a long

claw,--inhabits Old Calabar.

{177}_Sub-family_ Galaginæ, contains only the genus _Galago_ (14 sp.),

which is confined to the African continent, ranging from Senegal and

Fernando Po to Zanzibar and Natal.

FAMILY 7.--TARSIIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The curious _Tarsius spectrum_, which constitutes this family, inhabits

Sumatra, Banca, and Borneo, and is also found in some parts of Celebes,

which would bring it into the Australian region; but this island is

altogether so anomalous that we can only consider its productions to have

somewhat more affinity with the Australian than the Oriental region, but

hardly to belong to either. The Tarsier is a small, long-tailed, nocturnal

animal, of curious structure and appearance; and it forms the only link of

connection with the next family, which it resembles in the extraordinary

development of the toes, one of which is much larger and more slender than

the rest. (Plate VIII., vol. i. p. 337.)

FAMILY 8.--CHIROMYIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Aye-aye, (_Chiromys_), the sole representative of this family, is

confined to the island of Madagascar. It was for a long time very

imperfectly known, and was supposed to belong to the Rodentia; but it has

now been ascertained to be an exceedingly specialized form of the Lemuroid

type, and must be considered to be one of the most extraordinary of the

mammalia now inhabiting the globe. (Plate VI., vol. i., p. 278.)

{178}_Fossil Quadrumana._

Not much progress has yet been made in tracing back the various forms of

Apes and Monkeys to their earliest appearance on the globe; but there have

been some interesting recent discoveries, which lead us to hope that the

field is not yet exhausted. The following is a summary of what is known as

to the early forms of each family:--

_Simiidæ._--Two or three species of this family have been found in the

Upper Miocene deposits of France and Switzerland. _Pliopithecus_, of which

a species has been found at each locality, was allied to the gibbons

(_Hylobates_), and perhaps to _Semnopithecus_. A more remarkable form,

named _Dryopithecus_, as large as a man, and having peculiarities of

structure which are thought by Gervais and Lartet to indicate a nearer

approach to the human form than any existing Ape, has been found in strata

of the same age in France.

_Semnopithecidæ._--Species of _Semnopithecus_ have been found in the Upper

Miocene of Greece, and others in the Siwalik Hills of N. W. India, also of

Upper Miocene age. An allied form also occurs in the Miocene of Wurtemburg.

_Mesopithecus_ from Greece is somewhat intermediate between _Semnopithecus_

and _Macacus_.

Remains supposed to be of _Semnopithecus_, have also occurred in the

Pliocene of Montpellier.

_Cynopithecidæ._--_Macacus_ has occurred in Pliocene deposits at Grays,

Essex; and also in the South of France along with _Cercopithecus_.

_Cebidæ._--In the caves of Brazil remains of the genera _Cebus_, _Mycetes_,

_Callithrix_, and _Hapale_, have been found; as well as an extinct form of

larger size--_Protopithecus_.

_Lemuroidea._--A true lemur has recently been discovered in the Eocene of

France; and it is supposed to be most nearly allied to the peculiar West

African genera, _Perodicticus_ and _Arctocebus_.

_Cænopithecus_, from the Swiss Jura, is supposed to have affinities both

for the Lemuridæ and the American Cebidæ.

In the lower Eocene of North America remains have been {179}discovered,

which are believed to belong to this sub-order: but they form two distinct

families,--Lemuravidæ and Limnotheridæ. Other remains from the Miocene are

believed to be intermediate between these and the Cebidæ,--a most

interesting and suggestive affinity, if well founded. For the genera of

these American Lemuroidea, see vol. i., p. 133.

_General Remarks on the Distribution of Primates._

The most striking fact presented by this order, from our present point of

view, is the strict limitation of well-marked families to definite areas.

The Cebidæ and Hapalidæ would alone serve to mark out tropical America as

the nucleus of one of the great zoological divisions of the earth. In the

Eastern Hemisphere, the corresponding fact is the entire absence of the

order from the Australian region, with the exception of one or two outlying

forms, which have evidently transgressed the normal limits of their group.

The separation of the Ethiopian and Oriental regions is, in this order,

mainly indicated by the distribution of the genera, no one of which is

common to the two regions. The two highest families, the Simiidæ and the

Semnopithecidæ, are pretty equally distributed about two equatorial foci,

one situated in West Africa, the other in the Malay archipelago,--in Borneo

or the Peninsula of Malacca;--while the third family, Cynopithecidæ, ranges

over the whole of both regions, and somewhat overpasses their limits. The

Lemuroid group, on the other hand, offers us one of the most singular

phenomena in geographical distribution. It consists of three families, the

species of which are grouped into six sub-families and 13 genera. One of

these families and two of the sub-families, comprising 7 genera, and no

less than 30 out of the total of 50 species, are confined to the one island

of Madagascar. Of the remainder, 3 genera, comprising 15 species, are

spread over tropical Africa; while three other genera with 5 species,

inhabit certain restricted portions of India and the Malay islands. These

curious facts point unmistakably to the former existence of a large tract

of land in what is now the Indian Ocean, connecting Madagascar on the one

hand with Ceylon, and with the Malay countries on the {180}other. About

this same time (but perhaps not contemporaneously) Madagascar must have

been connected with some portion of Southern Africa, and the whole of the

country would possess no other Primates but Lemuroidea. After the

Madagascar territory (very much larger than the existing island) had been

separated, a connection appears to have been long maintained (probably by a

northerly route) between the more equatorial portions of Asia and Africa;

till those higher forms had become developed, which were afterwards

differentiated into _Simia_, _Presbytes_, and _Cynopithecus_, on the one

hand, and into _Troglodytes_, _Colobus_, and _Cynocephalus_, on the other.

In accordance with the principle of competition so well expounded by Mr.

Darwin, we can understand how, in the vast Asiatic and African area north

of the Equator, with a great variety of physical conditions and the

influence of a host of competing forms of life, higher types were developed

than in the less extensive and long-isolated countries south of the

Equator. In Madagascar, where these less complex conditions prevailed in a

considerable land-area, the lowly organized Lemuroids have diverged into

many specialized forms of their own peculiar type; while on the continents

they have, to a great extent, become exterminated, or have maintained their

existence in a few cases, in islands or in mountain ranges. In Africa the

nocturnal and arboreal _Galagos_ are adapted to a special mode of life, in

which they probably have few competitors.

How and when the ancestors of the Cebidæ and Hapalidæ entered the South

American continent, it is less easy to conceive. The only rays of light we

yet have on the subject are, the supposed affinities of the fossil

_Cænopithecus_ of the Swiss, and the Lemuravidæ of the North American

Eocene, with both Cebidæ and Lemuroids, and the fact that in Miocene or

Eocene times a mild climate prevailed up to the Arctic circle. The

discovery of an undoubted Lemuroid in the Eocene of Europe, indicates that

the great Northern Continent was probably the birthplace of this low type

of mammal, and the source whence Africa and Southern Asia were peopled with

them, as it was, at a later period, with the higher forms of monkeys and

apes.

{181}_Order II.--CHIROPTERA._

FAMILY 9.--PTEROPIDÆ. (9 Genera, 65 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Pteropidæ, or fruit-eating Bats, sometimes called flying-foxes, are

pretty evenly distributed over the tropical regions of the Old World and

Australia. They range over all Africa and the whole of the Oriental Region,

and northward, to Amoy in China and to the South of Japan. They are also

found in the more fertile parts of Australia and Tasmania, and in the

Pacific Islands as far east as the Marianne and Samoa Islands; but not in

the Sandwich Islands or New Zealand.

The genera of bats are exceedingly numerous, but they are in a very

unsettled state, and the synonymy is exceedingly confused. The details of

their distribution cannot therefore be usefully entered into here. The

Pteropidæ differ so much from all other bats, that they are considered to

form a distinct suborder of Chiroptera, and by some naturalists even a

distinct order of Mammalia.

No fossil Pteropidæ have been discovered.

FAMILY 10.--PHYLLOSTOMIDÆ. (31 Genera, 60 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Phyllostomidæ, or simple leaf-nosed Bats, are confined to the

Neotropical region, from Mexico and the Antilles to the {182}southern

limits of the forest region east of the Andes, and to about lat. 33° S. in

Chili. None are found in the Nearctic region, with the exception of one

species in California (_Macrotus Californicus_), closely allied to Mexican

and West Indian forms. The celebrated blood-sucking vampyre bats of South

America belong to this group. Two genera, _Desmodus_ and _Diphylla_, form

Dr. Peters' family Desmodidæ. Mr. Dobson, in his recently published

arrangement, divides the family into five groups:--Mormopes, Vampyri,

Glossophagæ, Stenodermata, and Desmodontes.

Numerous remains of extinct species of this family have been found in the

bone-caves of Brazil.

FAMILY 11.--RHINOLOPHIDÆ. (7 Genera, 70 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Rhinolophidæ, or Horse-shoe Bats (so-called from a curiously-shaped

membranous appendance to the nose), range over all the Ethiopian and

Oriental regions, the southern part of the Palæarctic region, Australia and

Tasmania. They are most abundant and varied in the Oriental region, where

twelve genera are found; while only five inhabit the Australian and

Ethiopian regions respectively. Europe has only one genus and four species,

mostly found in the southern parts, and none going further north than the

latitude of England, where two species occur. Two others are found in

Japan, at the opposite extremity of the Palæarctic region.

The genera _Nycteris_ and _Megaderma_, which range over the Ethiopian and

Oriental regions to the Moluccas, are considered by Dr. Peters to form a

distinct family, Megadermidæ; and Mr. Dobson in his recent arrangement

(published after our first {183}volume was printed) adopts the same family

under the name of Nycteridæ. The curious Indian genus _Rhinopoma_, which,

following Dr. J. E. Gray, we have classed in this family, is considered by

Mr. Dobson to belong to the Noctilionidæ.

_Fossil Rhinolophidæ._--Remains of a species of _Rhinolophus_ still living

in England, have been found in Kent's Cavern, near Torquay.

FAMILY 12.--VESPERTILIONIDÆ (18 Genera, 200 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The small bats constituting the family Vespertilionidæ, have no

nose-membrane, but an internal earlet or _tragus_, and often very large

ears. They range over almost the whole globe, being apparently only limited

by the necessity of procuring insect food. In America they are found as far

north as Hudson's Bay and the Columbia river; and in Europe they approach,

if they do not pass the Arctic circle. Such remote islands as the Azores,

Bermudas, Fiji Islands, Sandwich Islands, and New Zealand, all possess

species of this group of bats, some of which probably inhabit every island

in warm or temperate parts of the globe.

The genus _Taphozous_, which, in our Tables of Distribution in vol. i. we

have included in this family, is placed by Mr. Dobson in his family

Emballonuridæ, which is equivalent to our next family, Noctilionidæ.

_Fossil Vespertilionidæ._--Several living European bats of this

family--_Scotophilus murinus_, _Plecotus auritus_, _Vespertilio noctula_,

and _V. pipestrellus_--have been found fossil in bone-caves in various

parts of Europe.

Extinct species of _Vespertilio_ have occurred in the Lower Miocene at

Mayence, in the Upper Miocene of the South of France, and in the Upper

Eocene of the Paris basin.

{184}FAMILY 13.--NOCTILIONIDÆ. (14 Genera, 50 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Noctilionidæ, or short-headed Bats, are found in every region, but are

very unequally distributed. Their head-quarters is the Neotropical region,

where most of the genera occur, and where they range from Mexico to Buenos

Ayres and Chili, while in North America there is only one species in

California. They are unknown in Australia; but one species occurs in New

Zealand, and another in Norfolk Island. Several species of _Dysopes_ (or

_Molossus_) inhabit the Oriental region; one or two species being widely

distributed over the continent, while two others inhabit the Indo-Malayan

Islands. A species of this same genus occurs in South Africa, and another

in Madagascar and in the Island of Bourbon; while one inhabits Southern

Europe and North Africa, and another is found at Amoy in China. It will be

seen therefore, that these are really South American bats, which have a few

allies widely scattered over the various regions of the globe. Their

affinities are, according to Mr. Tomes, with the Phyllostomidæ, a purely

South American family. The species which forms the connecting link is the

_Mystacina tuberculata_, a New Zealand bat, which may, with almost equal

propriety be placed in either family, and which affords an interesting

illustration of the many points of resemblance between the Australian and

Neotropical regions.

Dr. Peters has separated this family into three,--Mormopidæ, which is

wholly Neotropical, and is especially abundant in the West Indian Islands;

Molossidæ, chiefly consisting of the genus _Molossus_; and Noctilionidæ,

comprising the remainder of the family, and wholly Neotropical. Mr. Dobson,

however, classes the Mormopes with the Phyllostomidæ, and reduces the

{185}Molossi to the rank of a sub-family. In our first volume we have

classed _Rhinopoma_ with the Rhinolophidæ, and _Taphozous_ with the

Vespertilionidæ; but according to Mr. Dobson both these genera belong to

the present family.

_Remarks on the Distribution of the Order Chiroptera._

Although the bats, from their great powers of flight, are not amenable to

the limitations which determine the distribution of other terrestrial

mammals, yet certain great facts of distribution come out in a very

striking manner. The speciality of the Neotropical region is well shown,

not only by its exclusive possession of one large family (Phyllostomidæ),

but almost equally so by the total absence of two others (Pteropidæ and

Rhinolophidæ). The Nearctic region is also unusually well marked, by the

total absence of a family (Rhinolophidæ) which is tolerably well

represented in the Palæarctic. The Pteropidæ well characterize the tropical

regions of the Old World and Australia; while the Vespertilionidæ are more

characteristic of the Palæarctic and Nearctic regions, which together

possess about 60 species of this family.

The bats are a very difficult study, and it is quite uncertain how many

distinct species are really known. Schinz, in his _Synopsis Mammalium_

(1844) describes 330, while the list given by Mr. Andrew Murray in his

_Geographical Distribution of Mammalia_ (1866), contains 400 species. A

small number of new species have been since described, but others have been

sunk as synonyms, so that we can perhaps hardly obtain a nearer

approximation to the truth than the last number. In Europe there are 35

species, and only 17 in North America.

_Fossil Chiroptera._--The fossil remains of bats that have yet been

discovered, being chiefly allied to forms still existing in the same

countries, throw no light on the origin or affinities of this remarkable

and isolated order of Mammalia; but as species very similar to those now

living were in existence so far back as Miocene or even Eocene times, we

may be sure the group is one of immense antiquity, and that there has been

ample time for the amount of variation and extinction required to bring

about {186}the limitation of types, and the peculiarities of distribution

we now find to exist.

_Order III.--INSECTIVORA._

FAMILY 14.--GALEOPITHECIDÆ. (1 Genus, 2 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The singular and isolated genus _Galeopithecus_, or flying lemur, has been

usually placed among the Lemuroidea, but it is now considered to come best

at the head of the Insectivora. Its food however, seems to be purely

vegetable, and the very small, blind, and naked young, closely attached to

the wrinkled skin of the mother's breast, perhaps indicates some affinity

with the Marsupials. This animal seems, in fact, to be a lateral offshoot

of some low form, which has survived during the process of development of

the Insectivora, the Lemuroidea, and the Marsupials, from an ancestral

type. Only two species are known, one found in Malacca, Sumatra, and

Borneo, but not in Java; the other in the Philippine islands (Plate VIII.

vol. i. p. 337).

FAMILY 15.--MACROSCELIDIDÆ. (3 Genera, 10 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Macroscelides, or elephant shrews, are extraordinary little animals,

with trunk-like snout and kangaroo-like hind-legs. They are almost confined

to South Africa, whence they extend up the east coast as far as the Zambezi

and Mozambique. A {187}single outlying species of _Macroscelides_ inhabits

Barbary and Algeria; while the two genera _Petrodromus_, and _Rhyncocyon_,

each represented by a single species, have only been found at Mozambique.

FAMILY 16.--TUPAIIDÆ. (3 Genera, 10 species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Tupaiidæ are squirrel-like shrews, having bushy tails, and often

climbing up trees, but also feeding on the ground and among low bushes. The

typical _Tupaia_ (7 species), are called ground squirrels by the Malays.

They are most abundant in the Malay islands and Indo-Chinese countries, but

one species is found in the Khasia Mountains, and one in the Eastern Ghauts

near Madras. The small shorter-tailed _Hylomys_ (2 species) is found from

Tenasserim to Java and Borneo; while the elegant little _Ptilocerus_ (1

species) with its long pencilled tail, is confined to Borneo; (Plate VIII.

vol. i. p. 337). The family is therefore especially Malayan, with outlying

species in northern and continental India.

_Extinct Species._--_Oxygomphus_, found in the Tertiary deposits of

Germany, is believed to belong to this family; as is _Omomys_, from the

Pliocene of the United States.

FAMILY 17.--ERINACEIDÆ. (2 Genera, 15 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Hedgehogs, comprised in the genus _Erinaceus_ (14 species), are widely

distributed over the Palæarctic, and a part of the {188}Oriental regions;

but they only occur in the Ethiopian region in South Africa and in the

Deserts of the north, which more properly belong to the Palæarctic region.

They are absent from the Malayan, and also from the Indo-Chinese

sub-regions; except that they extend from the north of China to Amoy and

Formosa and into the temperate highlands of the Western Himalayas. The

curious _Gymnura_ (1 species) is found in Borneo, Sumatra, and the Malay

peninsula.

_Extinct Species._--The common hedgehog has been found fossil in several

Post-tertiary deposits, while extinct species occur in the lower Miocene of

Auvergne and in some other parts of Europe. Many of these remains are

classed in different genera from the living species;--(_Amphechinus_,

_Tetracus_, _Galerix_.)

FAMILY 18.--CENTETIDÆ. (6 Genera, 10 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Centetidæ are small animals, many of them having a spiny covering,

whence the species of _Centetes_ have been called Madagascar hedgehogs. The

genera _Centetes_ (2 species), _Hemicentetes_ (1 species), _Ericulus_ (1

species), _Echinops_ (3 species), and the recently described _Oryzorictes_

(1 species), are all exclusively inhabitants of Madagascar, and are almost

or quite tail-less. The remaining genus, _Solenodon_, is a more slender and

active animal, with a long, rat-like tail, shrew-like head, and coarse fur;

and the two known species are among the very few indigenous mammals of the

West Indian islands, one being found in Cuba (Plate XVII., vol. ii., p.

67), the other in Hayti. Although presenting many points of difference in

detail, the essential characters of this curious animal are, according to

Professors Peters and Mivart, identical with the rest of the Centetidæ. We

have thus a most remarkable and well-established case of discontinuous

distribution, two portions of the same family {189}being now separated from

each other by an extensive continent, as well as by a deep ocean.

_Extinct Species._--Remains found in the Lower Miocene of the South of

France are believed to belong to the genus _Echinops_, or one closely

allied to it.

FAMILY 19.--POTAMOGALIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The genus _Potamogale_ was founded on a curious, small, otter-like animal

from West Africa, first found by M. Du Chaillu at the Gaboon, and

afterwards by the Portuguese at Angola. Its affinities are with several

groups of Insectivora, but it is sufficiently peculiar to require the

establishment of a distinct family for its reception. (Plate V., vol. i.,

p. 264.)

FAMILY 20.--CHRYSOCHLORIDÆ. (2 Genera, 3 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Chrysochloridæ, or golden moles, of the Cape of Good Hope have been

separated by Professor Mivart into two genera, _Chrysochloris_ and

_Chalcochloris_. They are remarkable mole-like animals, having beautiful

silky fur, with a metallic lustre and changeable golden tints. They are

peculiar to the Cape district, but one species extends as far north as the

Mozambique territory. Their dentition is altogether peculiar, so as to

completely separate them from the true moles.

{190}FAMILY 21.--TALPIDÆ. (8 Genera, 19 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Moles comprise many extraordinary forms of small mammalia especially

characteristic of the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, only

sending out a few species of _Talpa_ along the Himalayas as far as Assam,

and even to Tenasserim, if there is no mistake about this locality; while

one species is found in Formosa, the northern part of which is almost as

much Palæarctic as Oriental. The genus _Talpa_ (7 species), spreads over

the whole Palæarctic region from Great Britain to Japan; _Scaptochirus_ (1

species) is a recent discovery in North China; _Condylura_ (1 species), the

star-nosed mole, inhabits Eastern North America from Nova Scotia to

Pennsylvania; _Scapanus_ (2 species) ranges across from New York to St.

Francisco; _Scalops_ (3 species), the shrew-moles, range from Mexico to the

great lakes on the east side of America, but on the west only to the north

of Oregon. An allied genus, _Myogale_ (2 species), has a curious

discontinuous distribution in Europe, one species being found in South-East

Russia, the other in the Pyrenees (Plate II., vol. i., p. 218). Another

allied genus, _Nectogale_ (1 species), has recently been described by

Professor Milne-Edwards from Thibet. _Urotrichus_ is a shrew-like mole

which inhabits Japan, and a second species has been discovered in the

mountains of British Columbia; an allied form, _Uropsilus_, inhabits East

Thibet. _Anurosorex_ and _Scaptonyx_, are new genera from North China.

_Extinct Species._--The common mole has been found fossil in bone-caves and

diluvial deposits, and several extinct species of mole-like animals occur

in the Miocene deposits of the South of France and of Germany. These have

been described under the generic names _Dimylus_, _Geotrypus_,

_Hyporissus_, _Galeospalax_; while _Palæospalax_ has been found in the

Pliocene forest-beds of Norfolk {191}and Ostend. Species of _Myogale_ also

occur from the Miocene downwards.

FAMILY 22.--SORICIDÆ. (1 Genus, 11 Sub-genera, 65 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Shrews have a wide distribution, being found throughout every region

except the Australian and Neotropical; although, as a species is found in

Timor and in some of the Moluccas, they just enter this part of the former

region, while one found in Guatemala brings them into the latter. A number

of species have recently been described from India and the Malay Islands,

so that the Oriental region is now the richest in shrews, having 28

species; the Nearctic comes next with 24; while the Ethiopian has 11, and

the Palæarctic 10 species. The sub-genera are _Crossopus_, _Amphisorex_,

_Neosorex_, _Crocidura_, _Diplomesodon_, _Pinulia_, _Pachyura_, _Blarina_,

_Feroculus_, _Anausorex_.

_Extinct Species._--Several species of _Sorex_ have been found fossil in

the Miocene of the South of France, as well as the extinct genera

_Mysarachne_ and _Plesiosorex_; and some existing species have occurred in

Bone Caves and Diluvial deposits.

_General Remarks on the Distribution of the Insectivora._

The most prominent features in the distribution of the Insectivora

are,--their complete absence from South America and Australia; the presence

of _Solenodon_ in two of the West Indian islands while the five allied

genera are found only in Madagascar; and the absence of hedgehogs from

North America. If we consider that there are only 135 known species of the

order, 65 of which belong to the one genus _Sorex_; while the remaining 26

genera contain only 70 species, which have to be classed in 8 distinct

families, and present such divergent and highly specialized forms as

_Galeopithecus_, _Erinaceus_, _Solenodon_, and _Condylura_, it becomes

evident that we have here the detached fragments of a much more

{192}extensive group of animals, now almost extinct. Many of the forms

continue to exist only in islands, removed from the severe competition of a

varied mammalian population, as in Madagascar and the Antilles; while

others appear to have escaped extermination either by their peculiar

habits--as the various forms of Moles; by special protection--as in the

Hedgehogs; or by a resemblance in form, coloration, and habits to dominant

groups in their own district--as the Tupaias of Malay which resemble

squirrels, and the Elephant-shrews of Africa which resemble the jerboas.

The numerous cases of isolated and discontinuous distribution among the

Insectivora, offer no difficulty from this point of view; since they are

the necessary results of an extensive and widely-spread group of animals

slowly becoming extinct, and continuing to exist only where special

conditions have enabled them to maintain themselves in the struggle with

more highly organized forms.

The fossil Insectivora do not throw much light on the early history of the

order, since even as far back as the Miocene period they consist almost

wholly of forms which can be referred to existing families. In North

America they go back to the Eocene period, if certain doubtful remains have

been rightly placed. The occurrence of fossil Centetidæ in Europe, supports

the view we have maintained in preceding chapters, that the existing

distribution of this family between Madagascar and the Antilles, proves no

direct connection between those islands, but only shows us that the family

once had an extensive range.

_Order IV--CARNIVORA._

FAMILY 23.--FELIDÆ. (3 Genera, 14 Sub-genera, 66 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Cats are very widely distributed over the earth--with the exception of

the Australian region and the island sub-region {193}of Madagascar and the

Antilles--universally; ranging from the torrid zone to the Arctic regions

and the Straits of Magellan. They are so uniform in their organization that

many naturalists group them all under one genus, _Felis_; but it is now

more usual to class at least the lynxes as a separate genus, while the

hunting leopard, or cheetah, forms another. Dr. J. E. Gray divides these

again, and makes 17 generic groups; but as this subdivision is not

generally adopted, and does not bring out any special features of

geographical distribution, I shall not further notice it.

The genus _Felis_ (56 species) has the same general range as the whole

family, except that it does not go so far north; the Amoor river in Eastern

Asia, and 55° N. Lat. in America, marking its limits. _Lyncus_ (10 species)

is a more northern group, ranging to the polar regions in Europe and Asia,

and to Lat. 66° N. in America, but not going further south than Northern

Mexico and the European shores of the Mediterranean, except the caracal,

which may be another genus, and which extends to Central India, Persia,

North Africa and even the Cape of Good Hope. The lynxes are thus almost

wholly peculiar to the Nearctic and Palæarctic regions. _Cynælurus_ (1

species) the hunting leopard, ranges from Southern and Western India

through Persia, Syria, Northern and Central Africa, to the Cape of Good

Hope.

_Extinct Felidæ._--More than twenty extinct species of true Felidæ have

been described, ranging in time from the epoch of prehistoric man back to

the Miocene or even the Eocene period. They occur in the south of England,

in Central and South Europe, in North-West India, in Nebraska in North

America, and in the caves of Brazil. Most of them are referred to the genus

_Felis_, and closely resemble the existing lions, tigers, and other large

cats. Another group however forms the genus _Machairodus_, a highly

specialized form with serrated teeth. Five species have been described from

Europe, Northern India, and both North and South America; and it is

remarkable that they exhibit at least as wide a range, both in space and

time, as the more numerous species referred to _Felis_. One of them

undoubtedly coexisted {194}with man in England, while another, as well as

the allied _Dinictis_, has been found in the Mauvaises Terres of Nebraska,

associated with _Anchitherium_ and other extinct and equally remarkable

forms, which are certainly Miocene if not, as some geologists think,

belonging to the Eocene period. These facts clearly indicate that we have

as yet made little approach to discovering the epoch when Felidæ

originated, since the oldest forms yet discovered are typical and highly

specialized representatives of a group which is itself the most specialized

of the Carnivora. Another genus, _Pseudælurus_, is common to the Miocene

deposits of Europe and North America.

FAMILY 24.--CRYPTOPROCTIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The _Cryptoprocta ferox_, a small and graceful cat-like animal, peculiar to

Madagascar, was formerly classed among the Viverridæ, but is now considered

by Professor Flower to constitute a distinct family between the Cats and

the Civets.

FAMILY 25.--VIVERRIDÆ. (8-33 Genera, 100 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Viverridæ comprise a number of small and moderate-sized carnivorous

animals, popularly known as civets, genets, and ichneumons, highly

characteristic of the Ethiopian and Oriental regions, several of the genera

being common to both. A species of _Genetta_, and one of _Herpestes_,

inhabit South Europe; while _Viverra_ extends to the Moluccas, but is

doubtfully indigenous. The extreme geographical limits of the family are

marked by {195}_Genetta_ in France and Spain, _Viverra_ in Shanghae and

Batchian Island, and _Herpestes_ in Java and the Cape of Good Hope.

The following are the genera with their distribution as given by Dr. J. E.

Gray in his latest British Museum Catalogue:

Sub-family VIVERRINÆ.--_Viverra_ (3 species), North and tropical Africa,

the whole Oriental region to the Moluccas; _Viverricula_ (1 species) India

to Java; _Genetta_ (5 species), South Europe, Palestine, Arabia, and all

Africa; _Fossa_ (1 species), Madagascar; _Linsang_ (2 species), Malacca to

Java; _Poiana_ (1 species), West Africa; _Galidia_ (3 species), Madagascar;

_Hemigalea_ (1 species), Malacca and Borneo; _Arctictis_ (1 species) Nepal

to Sumatra and Java; _Nandinia_ (1 species), West Africa; _Paradoxurus_ (9

species), the whole Oriental region; _Paguma_ (3 species), Nepal to China,

Sumatra, and Borneo; _Arctogale_ (1 species), Tenasserim to Java.

Sub-family HERPESTINÆ.--_Cynogale_ (1 species), Borneo; _Galidictis_ (2

species), Madagascar; _Herpestes_ (22 species), South Palæarctic,

Ethiopian, and Oriental regions; _Athylax_ (3 species), Tropical and South

Africa; _Galogale_ (13 species), all Africa, North India, to Cambodja;

_Galerella_ (1 species), East Africa; _Calictis_ (1 species), Ceylon (?);

_Ariella_ (1 species), South Africa; _Ichneumia_ (4 species), Central,

East, and South Africa; _Bdeogale_ (3 species), West and East Africa;

_Urva_ (1 species), Himalayas to Aracan; _Tæniogale_ (1 species), Central

India; _Onychogale_ (1 species), Ceylon; _Helogale_ (2 species) East and

South Africa; _Cynictis_ (3 species), South Africa.

Sub-family RHINOGALIDÆ.--_Rhinogale_ (1 species), East Africa; _Mungos_ (3

species), all Africa; _Crossarchus_ (1 species), Tropical Africa;

_Eupleres_ (1 species), Madagascar; _Suricata_ (1 species), South Africa.

_Fossil Viverridæ._--Several species of _Viverra_ and _Genetta_ have been

found in the Upper Miocene of France, and many extinct genera have also

been discovered. The most remarkable of these was _Ictitherium_, from the

Upper Miocene of Greece, which has also been found in Hungary, Bessarabia,

and France. Some of the species were larger than any living forms of

Viverridæ, and approached the hyænas. Other extinct genera are

_Thalassictis_ {196}and _Soricictis_ from the Upper Miocene, the former as

large as a panther; _Tylodon_, of small size, from the Upper Eocene; and

_Palæonyctis_ from the Lower Eocene, also small and showing a very great

antiquity for this family, if really belonging to it.

FAMILY 26.--PROTELIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The curious _Proteles_ or Aard-wolf, a highly-modified form of hyæna,

approaching the ichneumons, and feeding on white ants and carrion, is

peculiar to South Africa.

FAMILY 27.--HYÆNIDÆ. (1 Genus, 3 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Hyænas are characteristically Ethiopian, to which region two of the

species are confined. The third, _Hyæna striata_, ranges over all the open

country of India to the foot of the Himalayas, and through Persia, Asia

Minor, and North Africa. Its fossil remains have been found in France.

_Extinct Species._--The cave hyæna (_H. spelæa_) occurs abundantly in the

caverns of this country and of Central Europe, and is supposed to be most

nearly allied to the _H. crocuta_ of South Africa. Another species is found

in some parts of France. The earliest known true hyænas occur in the

Pliocene formation in France, in the Red Crag (Older Pliocene) of England,

and in the Upper Miocene of the Siwalik hills. In the Miocene period in

Europe, quite distinct genera are found, such as Hyænictis and _Lycæna_

from the Upper Miocene of Greece; {197}_Ictitherium_, supposed to be

intermediate between Viverridæ and Hyænidæ; and _Thalassictis_, uniting the

weasels and hyænas.

FAMILY 28.--CANIDÆ. (3 Genera, 17 Sub-Genera, 54 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Canidæ, comprising the animals commonly known as dogs, wolves, and

foxes, have an almost universal range over the earth, being only absent

from the island sub-regions of Madagascar, the Antilles, Austro-Malaya, New

Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. With the exception of two remarkable

forms--the hyæna dog (_Lycaon picta_), and the great-eared fox (_Megalotis

Lalandei_), both from South Africa--all the species are usually placed in

the genus _Canis_, the distribution of which will be the same as that of

the family. Dr. J. E. Gray, in his arrangement of the family (Proc. Zool.

Soc., 1868), subdivides it into fifteen genera, the names and general

distribution of which are as follows:--

_Icticyon_ (1 species), Brazil; _Cuon_ (4 species), Siberia to Java;

_Lupus_ (5 species), North America, Europe, India to Ceylon; _Dieba_ (1

species), North and West Africa; _Simenia_ (1 species), Abyssinia;

_Chrysocyon_ (2 species), North and South America; _Canis_ (4 species),

India, Australia (indigenous?) _Lycalopex_ (2 species), South America;

_Pseudalopex_ (5 species), South America and Falkland Islands; _Thous_ (2

species), South America to Chili; _Vulpes_ (17 species), all the great

continents, except South America and Australia; _Fennecus_ (4 species), all

Africa; _Leucocyon_ (1 species), Arctic regions; _Urocyon_ (2 species),

North America; _Nyctereutes_ (1 species), Japan, Amoorland to Canton (Plate

III., vol. i. p. 226). These are all sub-genera according to Professor

Carus, except _Icticyon_. The same author makes Lycaon a sub-genus, while

Dr. Gray makes it a sub-family!

_Extinct Species._--The dog, wolf, and fox, are found fossil in

{198}caverns in many parts of Europe, and several extinct species have been

found in Tertiary deposits in Europe, North India, and South America. Two

species have been found so far back as the Eocene of France, but the

fragments discovered are not sufficient to determine the characters with

any certainty. In North America, several species of _Canis_ occur in the

Pliocene of Nebraska and La Plata. The genus _Galecynus_, of the Pliocene

of Oeninghen, and _Palæocyon_, of the Brazilian caves, are supposed to

belong to the Canidæ. _Amphicyon_ abounded in the Miocene period, both in

Europe and North America; and some of the species were as large as a tiger.

Other extinct genera are, _Cynodictis_, _Cyotherium_, and _Galethylax_,

from the Eocene of France; _Pseudocyon_, _Simocyon_, and _Hemicyon_, from

the Miocene; but all these show transition characters to Viverridæ or

Ursidæ, and do not perhaps belong to the present family.

FAMILY 29.--MUSTELIDÆ. (21-28 Genera, 92 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Mustelidæ constitute one of those groups which range over the whole of

the great continental areas. They may be divided into three

sub-families--one, the Mustelinæ, containing the weasels, gluttons, and

allied forms; a second, the Lutrinæ, containing the otters; and a third,

often considered a distinct family, the Melininæ, containing the badgers,

ratels, skunks, and their allies.

In the first group (Mustelinæ) the genera _Martes_ and _Putorius_ (13

species), range over all the Palæarctic region, and a considerable part of

the Oriental, extending through India to Ceylon, and to Java and Borneo.

Two species of _Martes_ (= _Mustela_ of Baird) occur in the United States.

The weasels, forming the genus _Mustela_ (20 species), have a still wider

range, extending into tropical Africa and the Cordilleras of Peru, but

{199}not going south of the Himalayas in India. The North American species

are placed in the genus _Putorius_ by Professor Baird. An allied genus,

_Gymnopus_ (4 species), is confined to the third and fourth Oriental

sub-regions. _Gulo_ (1 species), the glutton, is an arctic animal keeping

to the cold regions of Europe and Asia, and coming as far south as the

great lakes in North America. _Galictis_ (2 species), the grisons, are

confined to the Neotropical region.

The Otters (Lutrinæ) range over the whole area occupied by the family. They

have been subdivided into a number of groups, such as _Barangia_ (1

species), found only in Sumatra; _Lontra_, containing 3 South American

species; _Lutra_ (7 species), ranging over the whole of the Palæarctic and

Oriental regions; _Nutria_ (1 species), a sea-otter confined to the west

coast of America from California to Chiloe; _Lutronectes_ (1 species), from

Japan only; _Aonyx_ (5 species), found in West and South Africa, and the

third and fourth Oriental sub-regions. _Hydrogale_ (1 species), confined to

South Africa; _Latax_ (2 species), Florida and California to Canada and

British Columbia; _Pteronura_ (1 species), Brazil and Surinam; and

_Enhydris_ (1 species), the peculiar sea-otter of California, Kamschatka

and Japan. The last two are the only groups of otters, besides _Lutra_,

admitted by Professor Carus as genera.

The Badgers and allies (Melininæ) have also a wide range, but with one

exception are absent from South America. They comprise the following

genera: _Arctonyx_ (1 species), Nepal to Aracan; _Meles_ (4 species), North

Europe to Japan, and China as far south as Hongkong (Plate I., vol. i., p.

195); _Taxidea_ (2 species), Central and Western North America to 58° N.

Lat.; _Mydaus_ (1 species), mountains of Java and Sumatra; _Melivora_ (3

species), Tropical and South Africa and India to foot of Himalayas;

_Mephitis_ (12 species), America from Canada and British Columbia to the

Straits of Magellan (Plate XX., vol. ii., p. 136). _Ictonyx_ (2 species),

Tropical Africa to the Cape; _Helictis_ (4 species), Nepal to Java, Formosa

and Shanghai (Plate VII., vol. i. p. 331).

_Fossil Mustelidæ._--Species of otter, weasel, badger, and glutton, occur

in European bone caves and other Post-tertiary deposits; and in North

America _Galictis_, now found only in the Neotropical region, and, with

_Mephitis_, occurring in Brazilian caves.

{200}Species of _Mustela_ have been found in the Pliocene of France and of

South America; and _Lutra_ in the Pliocene of North America.

In the Miocene deposits of Europe several species of _Mustela_ and _Lutra_

have been found; with the extinct genera _Taxodon_, _Potamotherium_, and

_Palæomephitis_; as well as _Promephitis_ in Greece.

In the Upper Miocene of the Siwalik Hills species of _Lutra_ and

_Mellivora_ are found, as well as the extinct genera _Enhydrion_ and

_Ursitaxus_.

The family appears to have been unknown in North America during the Miocene

period.

FAMILY 30.--PROCYONIDÆ. (4 Genera, 8 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Procyonidæ are a small, but very curious and interesting family of

bear-like quadrupeds, ranging from British Columbia and Canada on the

north, to Paraguay and the limits of the tropical forests on the south.

The Racoons, forming the genus _Procyon_, are common all over North

America; a well-marked variety or distinct species inhabiting the west

coast, and another, most parts of South America. The genus _Nasua_, or the

coatis (5 species?), extends from Mexico and Guatemala to Paraguay. The

curious arboreal prehensile-tailed kinkagou (_Cercoleptes candivolvus_) is

also found in Mexico and Guatemala, and in all the great forests of Peru

and North Brazil. _Bassaris_ (2 species), a small weasel-like animal with a

banded tail, has been usually classed with the Viverridæ or Mustelidæ, but

is now found to agree closely in all important points of internal structure

with this family. It is found in California, Texas, and the highlands of

Mexico, and belongs therefore as much to the Nearctic as to the Neotropical

region. A second species has recently been described by Professor Peters

{201}from Coban in Guatemala, in which, country it has also been observed

by Mr. Salvin.

_Fossil Procyonidæ._--A species of _Nasua_ has been found in the bone caves

of Brazil, and a _Procyon_ in the Pliocene or Post-pliocene deposits of

Illinois and Carolina.

FAMILY 31.--ÆLURIDÆ. (2 Genera, 2 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Panda (_Ælurus fulgens_), of the forest regions of the Eastern

Himalayas and East Thibet, a small cat-like bear, has peculiarities of

organization which render it necessary to place it in a family by itself.

(Plate VII. vol. i. p. 331). An allied genus, _Æluropus_, a remarkable

animal of larger size and in colour nearly all white, has recently been

described by Professor Milne-Edwards, from the mountains of East Thibet; so

that the family may be said to inhabit the border lands of the Oriental and

Palæarctic regions. These animals have their nearest allies in the coatis

and bears.

FAMILY 32.--URSIDÆ. (5 Genera, or Sub-genera, 15 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Bears have a tolerably wide distribution, although they are entirely

absent from the Australian and Ethiopian, and almost so from the

Neotropical region, one species only being found in the Andes of Peru and

Chili. They comprise the following groups, some of which are doubtfully

ranked as genera.

_Thalassarctos_, the polar bear (1 species) inhabiting the Arctic regions;

_Ursus_, the true bears (12 species), which range over {202}all the

Nearctic and Palæarctic regions as far as the Atlas Mountains, the

Indo-Chinese sub-region in the mountains, and to Hainan and Formosa;

_Helarctos_, the Malay or sun-bear (1 species) confined to the Indo-Malayan

sub-region; _Melursus_ or _Prochilus_, the honey-bear (1 species), confined

to the first and second Oriental sub-regions, over which it ranges from the

Ganges to Ceylon; and _Tremarctos_, the spectacled bear--commonly known as

_Ursus ornatus_--which is isolated in the Andes of Peru and Chili, and

forms a distinct group.

_Fossil Ursidæ._--Two bears (_Ursus spelæus_ and _U. priscus_) closely

allied to living species, abound in the Post-tertiary deposits of Europe;

and others of the same age are found in North America, as well as an

extinct genus, _Arctodus_.

_Ursus arvernensis_ is found in the Pliocene formation of France, and the

extinct genus _Leptarchus_ in that of North America.

Several species of _Amphicyon_, which appears to be an ancestral form of

this family, are found in the Miocene deposits of Europe and N. India;

while _Ursus_ also occurs in the Siwalik Hills and Nerbudda deposits.

FAMILY 33.--OTARIIDÆ (4 Genera, 8 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Otariidæ, or Eared Seals, comprehending the sea-bears and sea-lions,

are confined to the temperate and cold shores of the North Pacific, and to

similar climates in the Southern Hemisphere, where the larger proportion of

the species are found. They are entirely absent from the North Atlantic

shores. Mr. J. A. Allen, in his recent discussion of this family (Bull.

Harvard Museum) divides them into the following genera:--

_Otaria_ (1 species), Temperate South America, from Chili to La Plata;

_Callorhinus_ (1 species), Behring's Straits and Kamschatka;

_Arctocephalus_ (3 species), temperate regions of the {203}Southern

Hemisphere; _Zalophus_ (2 species), North Pacific, from California to

Japan, and the shores of Australia and New Zealand; _Eumetopias_ (1

species), Behring's Straits and California.

_Fossil Otariidæ._--Remains supposed to belong to this family have been

found in the Miocene of France.

FAMILY 34.--TRICHECHIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Morse, or Walrus (_Trichecus rosmarus_), which alone constitutes this

family, is a characteristic animal of the North Polar regions, hardly

passing south of the Arctic circle except on the east and west coasts of

North America, where it sometimes reaches Lat. 60°. It is most abundant on

the shores of Spitzbergen, but is not found on the northern shores of Asia

between Long. 80° and 160° E., or on the north shores of America from 100°

to 150° west.

Its remains have been found fossil in Europe as far south as France, and in

America as far as Virginia; but the small fragments discovered may render

the identification uncertain.

FAMILY 35.--PHOCIDÆ. (13 Genera, 21 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The earless or true Seals are pretty equally divided between the Northern

and Southern Hemispheres, frequenting almost exclusively the temperate and

cold regions, except two species said to occur among the West Indian

islands. The genus _Phoca_ and its close allies, as well as _Halichoerus_

and _Pelagius_, are {204}northern; while _Stenorhynchus_ and _Morunga_,

with their allies, are mostly southern. The genera admitted by Dr. Gray in

his catalogue are as follows:--

_Callocephalus_ (3 species), Greenland, North Sea, also the Caspian Sea,

and Lakes Aral and Baikal; _Pagomys_ (2 species), North Sea, North Pacific,

and Japan; _Pagophilus_ (2 species), North Pacific and North Atlantic;

_Halicyon_ (1 species), North West coast of America; _Phoca_ (2 species),

North Atlantic and North Pacific, Japan; _Halichoerus_ (1 species),

Greenland, North Sea, and Baltic; _Pelagius_ (2 species), Madeira,

Mediterranean, Black Sea; _Stenorhynchus_ (1 species), Antarctic Ocean,

Falkland Islands, New Zealand; _Lobodon_ (1 species), Antarctic Ocean;

_Leptonyx_ (1 species), Antarctic Ocean, South Australia, East Patagonia;

_Ommatophoca_ (1 species), Antarctic Ocean; _Morunga_ (2 species),

California, Falkland Islands, Temperate regions of Southern Ocean;

_Cystophora_ (2 species), North Atlantic, Antilles.

_Fossil Seals._--Remains of living species of seals have been found in

Post-tertiary deposits in many parts of Europe and in Algeria, as well as

in New Zealand. _Pristiphoca occitana_ is a fossil seal from the Pliocene

of Montpellier, while a species of _Phoca_ is said to have been found in

the Miocene deposits of the United States.

_General Remarks on the Distribution of the Carnivora._

_Terrestrial Carnivora._--For the purposes of geographical distribution,

the terrestrial and aquatic Carnivora differ too widely to be considered in

one view, their areas being limited by barriers of a very different nature.

The terrestrial Carnivora form a very extensive and considerably varied

group of animals, having, with the doubtful exception of Australia, a

world-wide distribution. Yet the range of modification of form is not very

great, and the occurrence of three families consisting of but one species

each, is an indication of a great amount of recent extinction. One of the

most marked features presented by this group is its comparative scarcity in

the Neotropical region, only four families being represented there (not

counting the Ursidæ, which has only one Andean species), and both genera

and species are few in number. Even the Procyonidæ, which are especially

South {205}American, have but two genera and six species in that vast area.

We might therefore, from these considerations alone, conclude that

Carnivora are a development of the northern hemisphere, and have been

introduced into the Neotropical region at a comparatively recent epoch. The

claim of the Nearctic region to be kept distinct from the Palæarctic (with

which some writers have wished to unite it) is well maintained by its

possession of at least six species of _Mephitis_, or skunk, a group having

no close allies in any other region,--and the genera _Procyon_ and

_Bassaris_,--for the latter, ranging from the high lands of Guatemala and

Mexico to Texas and California, may be considered a Nearctic rather than a

Neotropical form. In the other families, the most marked feature is the

total absence of Ursidæ from the Ethiopian region. The great mass of the

generic forms of Carnivora, however, are found in the Oriental and

Ethiopian regions, which possess all the extensive group of Viverridæ

(except a few species in the fourth Palæarctic sub-region) and a large

number of Felidæ and Mustelidæ.

_Aquatic Carnivora._--The aquatic Carnivora present no very marked features

of distribution, except their preference for cold and temperate rather than

tropical seas. Their nearest approximation to the terrestrial group, is

supposed to be that of the Otariidæ to the Ursidæ; but this must be very

remote, and the occurrence of both seals and bears in the Miocene period,

shows, that until we find some late Secondary or early Tertiary formation

rich in Mammalian remains, we are not likely to get at the transition forms

indicating the steps by which the aquatic Carnivora were developed. The

most interesting special fact of distribution to be noticed, is the

occurrence of seals, closely allied to those inhabiting the northern seas,

in the Caspian, Lake Aral, and Lake Baikal. In the case of the two

first-named localities there is little difficulty, as they are connected

with the North Sea by extensive plains of low elevation, so that a

depression of less than 500 feet would open a free communication with the

ocean. At a comparatively recent epoch, a great gulf of the Arctic ocean

must have occupied the valley of the Irtish, and extended to the Caspian

Sea; till the elevation of the Kirghiz Steppes cut off the

{206}communication with the ocean, leaving an inland sea with its seals.

Lake Baikal, however, offers much greater difficulties; since it is not

only a fresh-water lake, but is situated in a mountain district nearly

2,000 feet above the sea level, and entirely separated from the plains by

several hundred miles of high land. It is true that such an amount of

submergence and elevation is known to have occurred in Europe so recently

as during the Glacial period; but Lake Baikal is so surrounded by

mountains, that it must at that time have been filled with ice, if at

anything like its present elevation. Its emergence from the sea must

therefore have taken place since the cold epoch, and this would imply that

an enormous extent of Northern Asia has been very recently under water.

We are accustomed to look on Seals as animals which exclusively inhabit

salt water; but it is probably from other causes than its saltness that

they usually keep to the open sea, and there seems no reason why

fresh-water should not suit them quite as well, provided they find in it a

sufficiency of food, facilities for rearing their young, and freedom from

the attacks of enemies. As already remarked in vol. i. p. 218, Mr. Belt's

ingenious hypothesis (founded on personal examination of the Siberian

Steppes), that during the Glacial period the northern ice-cap dammed up the

waters of the northward flowing Asiatic rivers, and thus formed a vast

fresh-water lake which might have risen as high as Lake Baikal, seems to

offer the best solution of this curious problem of distribution.

_Range of Carnivora in Time._--Carnivora have been found in all the

Tertiary deposits, and comprise a number of extinct genera and even

families. Several genera of Canidæ occur in the Upper Eocene of Europe; but

the most remarkable fact is, that even in the Lower Eocene are found two

well-marked forms, _Palæonyctis_, one of the Viverridæ, and _Arctocyon_,

forming a distinct family type of very generalized characters, but

unmistakably a carnivore. This last has been found at La Fère, in the

north-east of France, in a deposit which, according to M. Gaudry, is the

very lowest of the Lower Eocene formation in Europe. _Arctocyon_ is

therefore one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, of the higher forms of

mammal yet discovered.

{207}_Order V.--CETACEA._

FAMILY 36.--BALÆNIDÆ. (6 Genera, 14 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.--Temperate and Cold Seas of both Northern and

Southern Hemispheres.

This family comprises the whalebone or "right" whales, the best known

species being the Greenland whale (_Balæna mysticetus_). Allied species are

found in all parts of the southern seas, as far north as the Cape of Good

Hope; while some of the northern species are found off the coast of Spain,

and even enter the Mediterranean. As most of the species indicated are

imperfectly known, and their classification by no means well settled, no

useful purpose will be served by enumerating the genera or sub-genera.

FAMILY 37.--BALÆNOPTERIDÆ. (9 Genera, 22 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.--Cold and Temperate Seas of both Hemispheres.

This family comprises the finner whales and rorquals, and are characterised

by possessing a dorsal fin and having the baleen or whalebone less

developed. They are abundant in all northern seas, less so in the southern

hemisphere, but they seem occasionally to enter the tropical seas. The best

known genera are _Megaptera_ (7 species); _Physalus_ (4 species); and

_Balænoptera_ (2 species); all of which have species in the North Sea.

FAMILY 38.--CATODONTIDÆ. (4 Genera, or Sub-Genera, 6 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.--All the Tropical Oceans, extending north and south

into Temperate waters.

This family, comprising the cachalots or sperm whales, and black-fish, are

separated from the true whales by having teeth in the lower jaw and no

whalebone. They are pre-eminently a tropical, as distinguished from the two

preceding which are {208}arctic and antarctic families. The spermaceti

whale (_Catodon macrocephalus_) abounds in the Pacific Ocean and in the

deep Moluccan Sea, and also in the Indian Ocean and the Mozambique Channel.

In the Atlantic it is scarce, although it occasionally comes north as far

as our shores.

The genera of Catodontidæ as given by Dr. Gray are, _Catodon_ (2 species?),

Warm Eastern Oceans; _Physeter_ (1 species), "the black fish," North Sea;

_Cogia_ (2 species), South Temperate Oceans; _Euphysetes_ (1 species),

Coast of Australia.

FAMILY 39.--HYPEROODONTIDÆ. (9 Genera or Sub-Genera, 12 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.--Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and Southern

Ocean.

This family consists of the beaked whales, which have no permanent teeth in

the upper jaw. The genera, according to Dr. Gray, are, _Hyperoodon_ (2

species) "bottle-nosed whales," North Sea; _Lagenocetus_ (1 species), North

Sea; _Epiodon_ (2 species), North and South Atlantic; _Petrorhynchus_ (2

species), Mediterranean Sea and Southern Ocean; _Berardius_ (1 species),

New Zealand; _Xiphius_ (1 species) North Atlantic; _Dolichodon_ (1

species), Cape of Good Hope; _Neoziphius_ (1 species) Mediterranean;

_Dioplodon_ (1 species), Indian Ocean.

FAMILY 40.--MONODONTIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

The "Narwhal" (_Monodon monoceros_) which constitutes this family, is

placed by Dr. Gray along with the "white whales," in his family Belugidæ.

It inhabits the North Sea.

FAMILY 41.--DELPHINIDÆ. (24 Genera or Sub-Genera, 100 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.--All Oceans, Seas, and Great Rivers of the globe.

This family, including the Porpoises, Dolphins, White Whales, &c., may be

described as small, fish-shaped whales, having teeth {209}in both jaws.

According to Dr. Gray they form seven families and 24 genera; according to

Professor Carus, four sub-families and 8 genera, but as these groups appear

to be established on quite different principles, and often differ widely

from each other, I shall simply enumerate Dr. Gray's genera with their

distribution as given in his British Museum Catalogue.

_Platanista_ (2 species), long-snouted porpoises, inhabiting the Ganges and

Indus; _Inia_ (1 species), a somewhat similar form, inhabiting the upper

waters of the Amazonian rivers: _Steno_ (8 species), Indian Ocean, Cape of

Good Hope, and West Pacific; _Sotalia_ (1 species), Guiana; _Delphinus_ (10

species), all the oceans; _Clymenia_ (14 species), all the oceans;

_Delphinapterus_ (1 species), South Atlantic; _Tursio_ (7 species),

Atlantic and Indian Oceans; _Eutropia_ (2 species), Chili, and Cape of Good

Hope; _Electra_, (8 species), all the oceans; _Leucopleurus_ (1 species),

North Sea; _Lagenorhynchus_ (1 species), North Sea; _Pseudorca_ (2

species), North Sea, Tasmania; _Orcaella_ (2 species), Ganges;

_Acanthodelphis_ (1 species), Brazil; _Phocæna_ (2 species), North Sea;

_Neomeris_ (1 species), India; _Grampus_ (3 species), North Sea,

Mediterranean, Cape of Good Hope; _Globiocephalus_ (14 species), all the

oceans; _Sphærocephalus_ (1 species), North Atlantic; _Orca_ (9 species),

Northern and Southern Oceans; _Ophysia_ (1 species), North Pacific;

_Beluga_ (6 species), Arctic Seas, Australia; _Pontoporia_ (1 species),

Monte Video.

_Fossil Cetacea._

Remains of Cetacea are tolerably abundant in Tertiary deposits, both in

Europe and North America. In the Lower Pliocene of England, France, and

Germany, extinct species of five or six living genera of whales and

dolphins have been found; and most of these occur also in the Upper

Miocene, along with many others, referred to about a dozen extinct genera.

In the Post-pliocene deposits of Vermont and South Carolina, several

extinct species have been found belonging to living genera; but in the

Miocene deposits of the Eastern United States cetacean remains are much

more abundant, more than 30 species of {210}extinct whales and dolphins

having been described, most of them belonging to extinct genera.

The Zeuglodontidæ, an extinct family of carnivorous whales, with

double-fanged serrated molar teeth, whose affinities are somewhat doubtful,

are found in the older Pliocene of Europe, and in the Miocene and Eocene of

the Eastern United States. _Zeuglodon_ abounds in the United States, and

one species reached a length of seventy feet. A species of this genus is

said to have been found in Malta. _Squalodon_ occurs in Europe and North

America; and in the latter country four or five other genera have been

described, of which one, _Saurocetes_, has been found also at Buenos Ayres.

_Order VI.--SIRENIA._

FAMILY 42.--MANATIDÆ. (3 Genera, 5 Species?)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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-- 2 -- 4 |-- -- -- --|1. -- 3 -- |1. 2 -- -- |1. 2. -- 4 |1 -- -- --

| | | | |

The Sea-cows are herbivorous aquatic animals living on the coasts or in the

great rivers of several parts of the globe. _Manatus_ (2 species) inhabits

both shores of the Atlantic, one species ranging from the Gulf of Mexico to

North Brazil, and ascending the Amazon far into the interior of the

continent; while the other is found on the west coast of Africa. _Halicore_

(2 species?), the Dugong, is peculiar to the Indian Ocean, extending from

Mozambique to the Red Sea, thence to Western India and Ceylon, the Malay

Archipelago and the north coast of Australia. _Rytina_ (1 species),

supposed to be now extinct, inhabited recently the North Pacific, between

Kamschatka and Behring's Straits.

_Fossil Sirenia._--Extinct species of _Manatus_ have been found in the

Post-pliocene deposits of Eastern North America from {211}Maryland to

Florida; and an extinct genus, _Prorastomus_, in some Tertiary deposits in

the Island of Jamaica.

In Post-pliocene deposits in Siberia, remains of _Rytina_ have been found;

while several species of the extinct genus _Halitherium_, perhaps

intermediate between _Manatus_ and _Halicore_, have been found in the older

Pliocene and Upper Miocene of France and Germany.

_Order VII.--UNGULATA._

FAMILY 43.--EQUIDÆ. (1 Genus, 8 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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LIVING SPECIES.

| | | | |

-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- 2. 3 -- |1. 2. 3 -- |-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --

| | | | |

EXTINCT SPECIES.

| | | | |

1. 2 -- -- |1. 2. 3 -- |1. 2. 3. 4 |-- -- -- --| 1 -- 3 -- |-- -- -- --

| | | | |

The Horses, Asses, and Zebras form a highly specialized group now confined

to the Ethiopian and Palæarctic regions, but during the middle and later

tertiaries having a very extensive range. The zebras (3 species) inhabit

the greater part of the Ethiopian region, while the asses (4 species) are

characteristic of the deserts of the Palæarctic region from North Africa

and Syria to Western India, Mongolia, and Manchuria. The domestic horse is

not known in a wild state, but its remains are found in recent deposits

from Britain to the Altai Mountains, so that its disappearance is probably

due to human agency.

_Extinct Equidæ._--Extinct forms of this family are very numerous. The

genus _Equus_ occurs in Post-pliocene and Pliocene deposits in Europe,

North America, and South America. In North America the species are most

numerous. An allied genus _Hipparion_, having rudimentary lateral toes, is

represented {212}by several species in the Pliocene of North America, while

in Europe it occurs both in the Older Pliocene and Upper Miocene. Various

other allied forms, in which the lateral toes are more and more developed,

and most of which are now classed in a distinct family, Anchitheridæ, range

back through the Miocene to the Eocene period. A sufficient account of

these has already been given in vol. i. chap. vi. p. 135, to which the

reader is referred for the supposed origin and migrations of the horse.

Family 44--TAPIRIDÆ. (2 Genera? 6 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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-- 2. 3 -- |-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- 4 |-- -- -- --

| | | | |

The Tapirs form a small group of animals whose discontinuous distribution

plainly indicates their approaching extinction. For a long time only two

species were known, the black American, and the white-banded Malay tapir,

the former confined to the equatorial forests of South America, the latter

to the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo (Plate VIII. vol. i. p. 337).

Lately however another, or perhaps two distinct species (or according to

Dr. J. E. Gray, four!) have been discovered in the Andes of New Granada and

Ecuador, at an elevation of from 8,000 to 12,000 feet; while one or perhaps

two more, forming the allied genus _Elasmognathus_, have been found to

inhabit Central America from Panama to Guatemala.

_Extinct Tapirs._--True tapirs inhabited Western Europe, from the latest

Pliocene back to the earliest Miocene times; while they only occur in

either North or South America in the Post-pliocene deposits and caves. The

singular distribution of the living species is thus explained, since we see

that they are an Old World group which only entered the American continent

at a comparatively recent epoch. An ancestral form of this

group--_Lophiodon_--is found in Miocene and Eocene deposits of {213}Europe

and North America; while a still more ancient form of large size is found

in the Lower Eocene of France and England, indicating an immense antiquity

for this group of Mammalia. There are many other extinct forms connecting

these with the Palæotheridæ, already noticed in chapter vi. (vol. i. pp.

119-125).

FAMILY 45.--RHINOCEROTIDÆ. (1 Genus, 9 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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LIVING SPECIES.

| | | | |

-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|1. 2. 3 -- |-- -- 3. 4 |-- -- -- --

| | | | |

EXTINCT SPECIES.

| | | | |

-- -- -- --|1. 2 -- -- |1. 2. 3. 4 |-- -- -- --| 1 -- 3 -- |-- -- -- --

| | | | |

Living Rhinoceroses are especially characteristic of Africa, with Northern

and Malayan India. Four or perhaps five species, all two-horned, are found

in Africa, where they range over the whole country south of the desert to

the Cape of Good Hope. In the Oriental region there are also four or five

species, which range from the forests at the foot of the Himalayas

eastwards through Assam, Chittagong, and Siam, to Sumatra, Borneo and Java.

Three of these are one-horned, the others found in Sumatra, and northwards

to Pegu and Chittagong, two-horned. The Asiatic differ from the African

species in some dental characters, but they are in other respects so much

alike that they are not generally considered to form distinct genera. In

his latest catalogue however (1873), Dr. Gray has four genera, _Rhinoceros_

(4 species), and _Ceratorhinus_ (2 species), Asiatic; _Rhinaster_ (2

species), and _Ceratotherium_ (2 species), African.

_Extinct Rhinocerotidæ._--Numerous species of _Rhinoceros_ ranged over

Europe and Asia from the Post-pliocene back to the Upper Miocene period,

and in North America during the Pliocene period {214}only. The hornless

_Acerotherium_ is Miocene only, in both countries. Other genera are

_Leptodon_ from Greece, and _Hyracodon_ from Nebraska, both of Miocene age.

More than 20 species of extinct rhinoceroses are known, and one has even

been found at an altitude of 16,000 feet in Thibet.

FAMILY 46.--HIPPOPOTAMIDÆ. (1 Genus, 2 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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LIVING SPECIES.

| | | | |

-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|1. 2. 3 -- |-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --

| | | | |

EXTINCT SPECIES.

| | | | |

-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|1. 2 -- -- |-- -- -- --| 1 -- 3 -- |-- -- -- --

| | | | |

The Hippopotamus inhabits all the great rivers of Africa; a distinct

species of a smaller size being found on the west coast, and on some of the

rivers flowing into Lake Tchad.

_Fossil Hippopotami._--Eight extinct species of _Hippopotamus_ are known

from Europe and India, the former Post-pliocene or Pliocene, the latter of

Upper Miocene age. They ranged as far north as the Thames valley. An

extinct genus from the Siwalik Hills, _Merycopotamus_, according to Dr.

Falconer connects _Hippopotamus_ with _Anthracotherium_, an extinct form

from the Miocene of Europe, allied to the swine.

FAMILY 47.--SUIDÆ. (5 Genera, 22 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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| | | | |

-- 2. 3 -- |-- 2. 3 -- |1. 2. 3. 4 |1. 2. 3. 4 |1. 2. 3. 4 |1. -- -- --

| | | | |

The Swine may be divided into three well-marked groups, from peculiarities

in their dentition. 1. The Dicotylinæ, or {215}peccaries (1 genus,

_Dicotyles_). These offer so many structural differences that they are

often classed as a separate family. 2. The true swine (3 genera, _Sus_,

_Potamochoerus_, and _Babirusa_); and, 3. The Phacochoerinæ, or wart hogs

(1 genus, _Phacochoerus_). These last are also sometimes made into a

separate family, but they are hardly so distinct as the Dicotylinæ.

The Peccaries (2 species), are peculiar to the Neotropical region,

extending from Mexico to Paraguay. They also spread northwards into Texas,

and as far as the Red River of Arkansas, thus just entering the Nearctic

region; but with this exception swine are wholly absent from this region,

forming an excellent feature by which to differentiate it from the

Palæarctic.

_Sus_ (14 species), ranges over the Palæarctic and Oriental regions and

into the first Australian sub-region as far as New Guinea; but it is absent

from the Ethiopian region, or barely enters it on the north-east.

_Potamochoerus_ (3 species?), is wholly Ethiopian (Plate V. vol. i. p.

278). _Babirusa_ (1 species), is confined to two islands, Celebes and

Bouru, in the first Australian sub-region.

_Phacochoerus_ (2 species), ranges over tropical Africa from Abyssinia to

Caffraria.

Dr. J. E. Gray divides true swine (_Sus_) into 7 genera, but it seems far

better to keep them as one.

_Fossil Suidæ._--These are very numerous. Many extinct species of wild hog

(_Sus_), are found in Europe and North India, ranging back from the

Post-pliocene to the Upper Miocene formations. In the Miocene of Europe are

numerous extinct genera, _Bothriodon_, _Anthracotherium_, _Palæochoerus_,

_Hyotherium_, and some others; while in the Upper Eocene occur

_Cebochoerus_, _Choeropotamus_, and _Acotherium_,--these early forms having

more resemblance to the peccaries.

None of these genera are found in America, where we have the living genus

_Dicotyles_ in the Post-pliocene and Pliocene deposits, both of North and

South America; with a number of extinct genera in the Miocene. The chief of

these are, _Elotherium_, _Perchoerus_, _Leptochoerus_, and _Nanohyus_, all

from Dakota, and _Thinohyus_, from Oregon. One extinct genus, _Platygonus_,

closely allied to _Dicotyles_, is found in the Post-pliocene of Nebraska,

{216}Oregon, and Arkansas. _Elotherium_ is said to be allied to the peccary

and hippopotamus. _Hyopotamus_, from the Miocene of Dakota, is allied to

_Anthracotherium_, and forms with it (according to Dr. Leidy) a distinct

family of ancestral swine.

It thus appears, that the swine were almost equally well represented in

North America and Europe, during Miocene and Pliocene times, but by

entirely distinct forms; and it is a remarkable fact that these hardy

omnivorous animals, should, like the horses, have entirely died out in

North America, except a few peccaries which have preserved themselves in

the sub-tropical parts and in the southern continent, to which they are

comparatively recent emigrants. We can hardly have a more convincing proof

of the vast physical changes that have occurred in the North American

continent during the Pliocene and Post-pliocene epochs, than the complete

extinction of these, along with so many other remarkable types of Mammalia.

According to M. Gaudry, the ancestors of all the swine, with the

hippopotami and extinct _Anthracotherium_, _Merycopotamus_, and many allied

forms,--are the _Hyracotherium_ and _Pliolophus_, both found only in the

London clay belonging to the Lower Eocene formation.

FAMILY 48.--CAMELIDÆ. (2 Genera, 6 Species).

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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LIVING SPECIES.

| | | | |

1. -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- 2. 3 -- |-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --

| | | | |

EXTINCT SPECIES.

| | | | |

1. -- -- --|-- 2. 3. 4 |-- -- 3 -- |-- -- -- --|-- -- 3. --|-- -- -- --

| | | | |

The Camels are an exceedingly restricted group, the majority of the species

now existing only in a state of domestication. The genus _Camelus_ (2

species), is a highly characteristic desert form {217}of the Palæarctic

region, from the Sahara to Mongolia as far as Lake Baikal. _Auchenia_ (4

species), comprehending the Llamas and Alpacas, is equally characteristic

of the mountains and deserts of the southern part of South America. Two

species entirely domesticated inhabit the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes; and

two others are found in a wild state, the vicuna in the Andes of Peru and

Chili (Plate XVI. vol. ii. p. 40), and the guanaco over the plains of

Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

_Extinct Camelidæ._--No fossil remains of camels have been found in Europe,

but one occurs in the deposits of the Siwalik Hills, usually classed as

Upper Miocene, but which some naturalists think are more likely of Older

Pliocene age. _Merycotherium_, teeth of which have been found in the

Siberian drift, is supposed to belong to this family.

In North America, where no representative of the family now exists, the

camel-tribe were once abundant. In the Post-pliocene deposits of California

an _Auchenia_ has been found, and in those of Kansas one of the extinct

genus _Procamelus_. In the Pliocene period, this genus, which was closely

allied to the living camels, abounded, six or seven species having been

described from Nebraska and Texas, together with an allied form

_Homocamelus_. In the Miocene period different genera

appear,--_Poebrotherium_, and _Protomeryx_,--while a _Procamelus_ has been

found in deposits of this age in Virginia.

In South America a species of _Auchenia_ has been found in the caves of

Brazil, and others in the Pliocene deposits of the pampas, together with

two extinct genera, _Palæolama_ and _Camelotherium_.

We thus find the ancestors of the Camelidæ in a region where they do not

now exist, but which is situated so that the now widely separated living

forms could easily have been derived from it. This case offers a remarkable

example of the light thrown by palæontology on the distribution of living

animals; and it is a warning against the too common practice of assuming

the direct land connection of remote continents, in order to explain

similar instances of discontinuous distribution to that of the present

family.

{218}FAMILY 49.--TRAGULIDÆ. (2 Genera, 6 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- 2 -- -- |1. 2. 3. 4 |-- -- -- --

| | | | |

The Tragulidæ are a group of small, hornless, deer-like animals, with tusks

in the upper jaw, and having some structural affinities with the camels.

The musk-deer was formerly classed in this family, which it resembles

externally; but a minute examination of its structure by M. Milne-Edwards,

has shown it to be more nearly allied to the true deer. The Chevrotains, or

mouse-deer, _Tragulus_ (5 species), range over all India to the foot of the

Himalayas and Ceylon, and through Assam, Malacca, and Cambodja, to Sumatra,

Borneo, and Java (Plate VIII., vol. i. p. 337). _Hyomoschus_ (1 species),

is found in West Africa.

_Extinct Tragulidæ._--A species of _Hyomoschus_ is said to have been found

in the Miocene of the South of France, as well as three extinct genera,

_Dremotherium_ (also found in Greece), with _Lophiomeryx_ from the Upper

Miocene, said to be allied to _Tragulus_; and _Amphitragulus_ from the

Lower Miocene, of more remote affinities, and sometimes placed among the

Deer. There seems to be no doubt, however, that this family existed in

Europe in Miocene times; and thus another case of discontinuous

distribution is satisfactorily accounted for.

FAMILY 50.--CERVIDÆ. (8 Genera, 52 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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1. 2. 3 -- |1. 2. 3. 4 |1. 2. 3. 4 |-- -- -- --|1. 2. 3. 4 |1 -- -- --

| | | | |

The Cervidæ, or deer tribe, are an extensive group of animals equally

adapted for inhabiting forests or open plains, the Arctic {219}regions or

the Tropics. They range in fact over the whole of the great continents of

the globe, with the one striking exception of Africa, where they are only

found on the shores of the Mediterranean which form part of the Palæarctic

region. The following is the distribution of the genera.

_Alces_ (1 species), the elk or moose, ranges all over Northern Europe and

Asia, as far south as East Prussia, the Caucasus, and North China; and over

Arctic America to Maine on the East, and British Columbia on the west. The

American species may however be distinct, although very closely allied to

that of Europe. _Tarandus_ (1 species), the reindeer, has a similar range

to the last, but keeps farther north in Europe, inhabiting Greenland and

Spitzbergen; and in America extends farther south, to New Brunswick and the

north shore of Lake Superior. There are several varieties or species of

this animal confined to special districts, but they are not yet well

determined. _Cervus_ (40 species), the true deer, have been sub-divided

into numerous sub-genera characteristic of separate districts. They range

over the whole area of the family, except that they do not go beyond 57° N.

in America and a little further in Europe and Asia. In South America they

extend over Patagonia and even to Tierra del Fuego. They are found in the

north of Africa, and over the whole of the Oriental region, and beyond it

as far as the Moluccas and Timor, where however they have probably been

introduced by man at an early period. _Dama_ (1 species), the fallow deer,

is a native of the shores of the Mediterranean, from Spain and Barbary to

Syria. _Capreolus_ (2 species), the roe-deer, inhabits all Temperate and

South Europe to Syria, with a distinct species in N. China. _Cervulus_ (4

species), the muntjacs, are found in all the forest districts of the

Oriental region, from India and Ceylon to China as far north as Ningpo and

Formosa, also southward to the Philippines, Borneo, and Java. _Moschus_ (1

species), the musk-deer, inhabits Central Asia from the Amoor and Pekin, to

the Himalayas and the Siamese mountains above 8000 ft. elevation. This is

usually classed as a distinct family, but M. Milne-Edwards remarks, that it

differs in no important points of organisation from the rest of the

Cervidæ. _Hydropotes_ {220}(1 species) inhabits China from the Yang-tse

Kiang northwards. This new genus has recently been discovered by Mr.

Swinhoe, who says its nearest affinities are with _Moschus_. Other new

forms are _Lophotragus_, and _Elaphodus_, both inhabiting North China; the

former is hornless, the latter has very small horns about an inch long.

_Extinct Deer._--Numerous extinct species of the genus _Cervus_ are found

fossil in many parts of Europe, and in all formations between the

Post-pliocene and the Upper Miocene. The Elk and Reindeer are also found in

caves and Post-pliocene deposits, the latter as far south as the South of

France. Extinct genera only, occur in the Upper Miocene in various parts of

Europe:--_Micromeryx_, _Palæomeryx_, and _Dicrocercus_ have been described;

with others referred doubtfully to _Moschus_, and an allied genus

_Amphimoschus_.

In N. America, remains of this family are very scarce, a _Cervus_ allied to

the existing wapiti deer, being found in Post-pliocene deposits, and an

extinct genus, _Leptomeryx_, in the Upper Miocene of Dakota and Oregon.

Another extinct genus, _Merycodus_, from the Pliocene of Oregon, is said to

be allied to camels and deer.

In South America, several species of _Cervus_ have been found in the

Brazilian caves, and in the Pliocene deposits of La Plata.

It thus appears, that there are not yet sufficient materials for

determining the origin and migrations of the Cervidæ. There can be little

doubt that they are an Old World group, and a comparatively recent

development; and that some time during the Miocene period they passed to

North America, and subsequently to the Southern continent. They do not

however appear to have developed much in North America, owing perhaps to

their finding the country already amply stocked with numerous forms of

indigenous Ungulates.

{221}FAMILY 51.--CAMELOPARDALIDÆ. (1 Genus, 1 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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LIVING SPECIES.

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The Camelopardalidæ, or giraffes, now consist of but a single species which

ranges over all the open country of the Ethiopian region, and is therefore

almost absent from West Africa, which is more especially a forest district.

During the Middle Tertiary period, however, these animals had a wider

range, over Southern Europe and Western India as far as the slopes of the

Himalayas.

_Extinct Species._--Species of _Camelopardalis_ have been found in Greece,

the Siwalik Hills, and Perim Island at the entrance to the Red Sea; and an

extinct genus, _Helladotherium_, more bulky but not so tall as the giraffe,

ranged from the south of France to Greece and North-west India.

FAMILY 52.--BOVIDÆ. (34 Genera, 149 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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This large and important family, includes all the animals commonly known as

oxen, buffaloes, antelopes, sheep, and goats, which have been classed by

many naturalists in at least three, and sometimes four or five, distinct

families. Zoologically, they {222}are briefly and accurately defined as,

"hollow-horned ruminants;" and, although they present wide differences in

external form, they grade so insensibly into each other, that no

satisfactory definition of the smaller family groups can be found. As a

whole they are almost confined to the great Old World continent, only a few

forms extending along the highlands and prairies of the Nearctic region;

while one peculiar type is found in Celebes, an island which is almost

intermediate between the Oriental and Australian regions. In each of the

Old World regions there are found a characteristic set of types. Antelopes

prevail in the Ethiopian region; sheep and goats in the Palæarctic; while

the oxen are perhaps best developed in the Oriental region.

Sir Victor Brooke, who has paid special attention to this family, divides

them into 13 sub-families, and I here adopt the arrangement of the genera

and species which he has been so good as to communicate to me in MSS.

Sub-family I. BOVINÆ (6 genera, 13 species). This group is one of the best

marked in the family. It comprises the Oxen and Buffaloes with their

allies, and has a distribution very nearly the same as that of the entire

family. The genera are as follows: BOS (1 sp.), now represented by our

domestic cattle, the descendants of the _Bos primigenius_, which ranged

over a large part of Central Europe in the time of the Romans. The

Chillingham wild cattle are supposed to be the nearest approach to the

original species. _Bison_ (2 sp.), one still wild in Poland and the

Caucasus; the other in North America, ranging over the prairies west of the

Mississippi, and on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains (Plate XIX.,

vol. ii., p. 129). _Bibos_ (3 sp.), the Indian wild cattle, ranging over a

large part of the Oriental region, from Southern India to Assam, Burmah,

the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Java. _Poephagus_ (1 sp.), the yak,

confined to the high plains of Western Thibet. _Bubalus_ (5 sp.), the

buffaloes, of which three species are African, ranging over all the

continental parts of the Ethiopian region; one Northern and Central Indian;

and the domesticated animal in South Europe and North Africa. _Anoa_ (1

sp.), the small wild cow of Celebes, {223}a very peculiar form more nearly

allied to the buffaloes than to any other type of oxen.

Sub-family II. TRAGELAPHINÆ: (3 genera, 11 species). The Bovine Antelopes

are large and handsome animals, mostly Ethiopian, but extending into the

adjacent parts of the Palæarctic and Oriental regions. The genera are:

_Oreas_ (2 sp.), elands, inhabiting all Tropical and South Africa.

_Tragelaphus_ (8 sp.), including the bosch-bok, kudu, and other large

antelopes, ranges over all Tropical and South Africa (Plate IV., vol. i.,

p. 261). _Portax_ (1 sp.) India, but rare in Madras and north of the

Ganges.

Sub-family III. ORYGINÆ: (2 genera, 5 species). _Oryx_ (4 sp.) is a desert

genus, ranging over all the African deserts to South Arabia and Syria;

_Addax_ (1 sp.) inhabits North Africa, North Arabia, and Syria.

Sub-family IV. HIPPOTRAGINÆ (1 genus, 3 species). The Sable Antelopes,

_Hippotragus_, form an isolated group inhabiting the open country of

Tropical Africa and south to the Cape.

Sub-family V. GAZELLINÆ (6 genera, 23 species). This is a group of small or

moderate-sized animals, most abundant in the deserts on the borders of the

Palæarctic, Oriental, and Ethiopian regions. _Gazella_ (17 sp.) is

typically a Palæarctic desert group, ranging over the great desert plateaus

of North Africa, from Senegal and Abyssinia to Syria, Persia, Beloochistan,

and the plains of India, with one outlying species in South Africa.

_Procapra_ (2 sp.), Western Thibet and Mongolia to about 110° east

longitude. _Antilope_ (1 sp.) inhabits all the plains of India. _Æpyceros_

(1 sp.) the pallah, inhabits the open country of South and South-east

Africa. _Saiga_ (1 sp.) a singular sheep-faced antelope, which inhabits the

steppes of Eastern Europe and Western Asia from Poland to the Irtish River,

south of 55° north latitude. (Plate II., vol. i., p. 218.) _Panthalops_ (1

sp.) confined to the highlands of Western Thibet and perhaps Turkestan.

Sub-family VI. ANTILOCAPRINÆ (1 genus, 1 species), _Antilocapra_, the

prong-horned antelope, inhabit both sides of the Rocky Mountains, extending

north to the Saskatchewan and {224}Columbia River, west to the coast range

of California, and east to the Missouri. Its remarkable deciduous horns

seem to indicate a transition to the Cervidæ. (Plate XIX., vol. ii., p.

129.)

Sub-family VII. CERVICAPRINÆ (5 genera, 21 species). This group of

Antelopes is wholly confined to the continental portion of the Ethiopian

region. The genera are: _Cervicapra_ (4 sp.), Africa, south of the equator

and Abyssinia; _Kobus_ (6 sp.), grassy plains and marshes of Tropical

Africa; _Pelea_ (1 sp.), South Africa; _Nanotragus_ (9 species), Africa,

south of the Sahara; _Neotragus_ (1 sp.) Abyssinia and East Africa.

Sub-family VIII. CEPHALOPHINÆ (2 genera, 24 species), Africa and India;

_Cephalophus_ (22 sp.), continental Ethiopian region; _Tetraceros_ (2 sp.)

hilly part of all India, but rare north of the Ganges.

Sub-family IX. ALCEPHALINÆ (2 genera, 11 species), large African Antelopes,

one species just entering the Palæarctic region. The genera are:

_Alcephalus_ (9 sp.) all Africa and north-east to Syria; _Catoblepas_ (2

sp.), gnus, Africa, south of the Equator.

Sub-region X. BUDORCINÆ (1 genus, 2 species) _Budorcas_ inhabits the high

Himalayas from Nepal to East Thibet.

Sub-family XI. RUPICAPRINÆ (1 genus, 2 species) the Chamois, _Rupicapra_,

inhabit the high European Alps from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus. (Plate

I., vol. i., p. 195.)

Sub-family XII. NEMORHEDINÆ (2 genera, 10 species). These goat-like

Antelopes inhabit portions of the Palæarctic and Oriental regions, as well

as the Rocky Mountains in the Nearctic region. _Nemorhedus_ (9 sp.) ranges

from the Eastern Himalayas to N. China and Japan, and south to Formosa, the

Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. _Aplocerus_ (1 sp.), the mountain goat of the

trappers, inhabits the northern parts of California and the Rocky

Mountains.

Sub-family XIII. CAPRINÆ (2 genera, 23 species). The Goats and Sheep form

an extensive series, highly characteristic of the Palæarctic region, but

with an outlying species on the Neilgherries in Southern India, and one in

the Rocky Mountains and California. The genera are _Capra_ (22 sp.) and

_Ovibos_ (1 sp.). {225}The genus _Capra_ consists of several sub-groups

which have been named as genera, but it is unnecessary here to do more than

divide them into "Goats and Ibexes" on the one hand and "Sheep" on the

other--each comprising 11 species. The former range over all the South

European Alps from Spain to the Caucasus; to Abyssinia, Persia, and Scinde;

over the high Himalayas to E. Thibet and N. China; with an outlying species

in the Neilgherries. The latter are only found in the mountains of Corsica,

Sardinia, and Crete, in Europe; in Asia Minor, Persia, and in Central and

North-Eastern Asia, with one somewhat isolated species in the Atlas

mountains; while in America a species is found in the Rocky Mountains and

the coast range of California. _Ovibos_ (1 sp.), the musk-sheep, inhabits

Arctic America north of lat. 60; but it occurs fossil in Post-glacial

gravels on the Yena and Obi in Siberia, in Germany and France along with

the Mammoth and with flint implements, and in caves of the Reindeer period;

also in the brick earth in the south of England, associated with

_Rhinoceros megarhinus_ and _Elephas antiquus_.

_Extinct Bovidæ._--In the caverns and diluviums of Europe, of the

Post-Pliocene period, the remains are found of extinct species of _Bos_,

_Bison_, and _Capra_; and in the caverns of the south of France

_Rupicapra_, and an antelope near _Hippotragus_. _Bos_ and _Bison_ also

occur in Pliocene deposits. In the Miocene of Europe, the only remains are

antelopes closely allied to existing species, and these are especially

numerous in Greece, where remains referred to two living and four extinct

genera have been discovered. In the Miocene of India numerous extinct

species of _Bos_, and two extinct genera, _Hemibos_ and _Amphibos_, have

been found, one of them at a great elevation in Thibet. Antelopes, allied

to living Indian species, are chiefly found in the Nerbudda deposits.

In North America, the only bovine remains are those of a _Bison_, and a

sheep or goat, in the Post-pliocene deposits; and of two species of

musk-sheep, sometimes classed in a distinct genus _Bootherium_, from beds

of the same age in Arkansas and Ohio. _Casoryx_, from the Pliocene of

Nebraska, is supposed to be allied to the antelopes and to deer.

{226}In the caves of Brazil remains of two animals said to be antelopes,

have been discovered. They are classed by Gervais in the genera _Antilope_

and _Leptotherium_, but the presence of true antelopes in S. America at

this period is so improbable, that there is probably some error of

identification.

The extinct family Sivatheridæ, containing the extraordinary and gigantic

four-horned _Sivatherium_ and _Bramatherium_, of the Siwalik deposits, are

most nearly allied to the antelopes.

From the preceding facts we may conclude, that the great existing

development of the Bovidæ is comparatively recent. The type may have

originated early in the Miocene period, the oxen being at first most

tropical, while the antelopes inhabited the desert zone a little further

north. The sheep and goats seem to be the most recent development of the

bovine type, which was probably long confined to the Eastern Hemisphere.

_General Remarks on the Distribution of the Ungulata._

With the exception of the Australian region, from which this order of

mammalia is almost entirely wanting, the Ungulata are almost universally

distributed over the continental parts of all the other regions. Of the ten

families, 7 are Ethiopian, 6 Oriental, 5 Palæarctic, 4 Neotropical, and 3

Nearctic. The Ethiopian region owes its superiority to the exclusive

possession of the hippopotamus and giraffe, both of which inhabited the

Palæarctic and Oriental regions in Miocene times. The excessive poverty of

the Nearctic region in this order is remarkable; the swine being

represented only by _Dicotyles_ in its extreme southern portion, while the

Bovidæ are restricted to four isolated species. Deer alone are fairly well

represented. But, during the Eocene and Miocene periods, North America was

wonderfully rich in varied forms of Ungulates, of which there were at least

8 or 9 families; while we have reason to believe that during the same

periods the Ethiopian region was excessively poor, and that it probably

received the ancestors of all its existing families from Europe or Western

Asia in later Miocene or Pliocene times. Many types that once abounded in

both Europe and North America are now preserved only in South America and

Central or Tropical Asia,--as {227}the tapirs and camels; while others once

confined to Europe and Asia have found a refuge in Africa,--as the

hippopotamus and giraffe; so that in no other order do we find such

striking examples of those radical changes in the distribution of the

higher animals which were effected during the latter part of the Tertiary

period. The present distribution of this order is, in fact, utterly

unintelligible without reference to the numerous extinct forms of existing

and allied families; but as this subject has been sufficiently discussed in

the Second Part of this work (Chapters VI. and VII.) it is unnecessary to

give further details here.

_Order VIII.--PROBOSCIDEA._

FAMILY 53.--ELEPHANTIDÆ. (1 Genus, 2 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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EXTINCT SPECIES.

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The elephants are now represented by two species, the African, which ranges

all over that continent south of the Sahara, and the Indian, which is found

over all the wooded parts of the Oriental region, from the slopes of the

Himalayas to Ceylon, and eastward, to the frontiers of China and to Sumatra

and Borneo. These, however, are but the feeble remnants of a host of

gigantic creatures, which roamed over all the great continents except

Australia during the Tertiary period, and several of which were

contemporary with man.

_Extinct Elephants._--At least 14 extinct species of _Elephas_, and a

rather greater number of the allied genus _Mastodon_ (distinguished by

their less complex grinding teeth) have now been {228}discovered. Elephants

ranged over all the Palæarctic and Nearctic regions in Post-Pliocene times;

in Europe and Central India they go back to the Pliocene; and only in India

to the Upper Miocene period; the number of species increasing as we go back

to the older formations.

In North America two or three species of _Mastodon_ are Post-pliocene and

Pliocene; and a species is found in the caves of Brazil, and in the

Pliocene deposits of the pampas of La Plata, of the Bolivian Andes, and of

Honduras and the Bahamas. In Europe the genus is Upper Miocene and

Pliocene, but is especially abundant in the former period. In the East, it

extends from Perim island to Burmah and over all India, and is mostly

Miocene, but with perhaps one species Pliocene in Central India.

An account of the range of such animals as belong to extinct families of

Proboscidea, will be found in Chapters VI. and VII.; from which it will be

seen that, although the family Elephantidæ undoubtedly originated in the

Eastern Hemisphere, it is not improbable that the first traces of the order

Proboscidea are to be found in N. America.

_Order IX.--HYRACOIDEA._

FAMILY 54.--HYRACIDÆ. (1 Genus. 10-12 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The genus _Hyrax_, which alone constitutes this family, consists of small

animals having the appearance of hares or marmots, but which more resemble

the genus _Rhinoceros_ in their teeth and skeleton. They range all over the

Ethiopian region, except Madagascar; a peculiar species is found in

Fernando Po, and they just enter the Palæarctic as far as Syria. They may

therefore be considered as an exclusively Ethiopian group. In Dr. Gray's

{229}last Catalogue (1873) he divides the genus into three--_Hyrax_,

_Euhyrax_ and _Dendrohyrax_--the latter consisting of two species confined

apparently to West and South Africa.

No extinct forms of this family have yet been discovered; the

_Hyracotherium_ of the London clay (Lower Eocene) which was supposed to

resemble _Hyrax_, is now believed to be an ancestral type of the Suidæ or

swine.

_Order X.--RODENTIA._

FAMILY 55.--MURIDÆ. (37 Genera, 330 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Muridæ, comprising the rats and mice with their allies, are almost

universally distributed over the globe (even not reckoning the domestic

species which have been introduced almost everywhere by man), the

exceptions being the three insular groups belonging to the Australian

region, from none of which have any species yet been obtained. Before

enumerating the genera it will be as well to say a few words on the

peculiarities of distribution they present. The true mice, forming the

genus _Mus_, is distributed over the whole of the world except N. and S.

America where not a single indigenous species occurs, being replaced by the

genus _Hesperomys_; five other genera, comprehending all the remaining

species found in South America are peculiar to the Neotropical region.

Three genera are confined to the Palæarctic region, and three others to the

Nearctic. No less than twelve genera are exclusively Ethiopian, while only

three are exclusively Oriental and three Australian.

_Mus_ (100-120 sp.) the Eastern Hemisphere, but absent from the Pacific and

Austro-Malayan Islands, except Celebes and Papua; _Lasiomys_ (1 sp.)

Guinea; _Acanthomys_ (5-6 sp.) Africa, India and {230}N. Australia;

_Cricetomys_ (1 sp.) Tropical Africa; _Saccostomus_ (2 sp.) Mozambique;

_Cricetus_ (9 sp.) Palæarctic region and Egypt; _Cricetulus_ (1 sp.,

Milne-Edwards, 1870) Pekin; _Pseudomys_ (1 sp.) Australia; _Hapalotis_ (13

sp.) Australia; _Phlæomys_ (1 sp.) Philippines; _Platacanthomys_ (1 sp.,

Blyth, 1865) Malabar; _Dendromys_ (2 sp.) S. Africa; _Nesomys_ (1 sp.

Peters, 1870) Madagascar; _Steatomys_ (2 sp.) N. and S. Africa; _Pelomys_

(1 sp.) Mozambique; _Reithrodon_ (9 sp.) N. America, Lat. 29° to Mexico,

and south to Tierra del Fuego; _Acodon_ (1 sp.) Peru; _Myxomys_ (1 sp.)

Guatemala; _Hesperomys_ (90 sp.) North and South America; _Holochilus_ (4

sp.) South America; _Oxymycterus_ (4 sp.) Brazil and La Plata; _Neotoma_ (6

sp.) U.S., East coast to California; _Sigmodon_ (2 sp.) Southern United

States; _Drymomys_ (1 sp.) Peru; _Neotomys_ (2 sp.) S. America; _Otomys_ (6

sp.) S. and E. Africa; _Meriones_ = _Gerbillus_ (20-30 sp.) Egypt, Central

Asia, India, Africa; _Rhombomys_ (6 sp.) S. E. Europe, N. Africa, Central

Asia; _Malacothrix_ (2 sp.) South Africa; _Mystromys_ (1 sp.) South Africa;

_Psammomys_ (1 sp.) Egypt; _Spalacomys_ (1 sp.) India; _Sminthus_ (1-3 sp.)

East Europe, Tartary, Siberia; _Hydromys_ (5 sp.) Australia and Tasmania;

_Hypogeomys_ (1 sp., Grandidier, 1870) Madagascar; _Brachytarsomys_ (1 sp.,

Günther, 1874) Madagascar; _Fiber_ (2 sp.) N. America to Mexico; _Arvicola_

(50 sp.) Europe to Asia Minor, North Asia, Himalayas, Temp. N. America;

_Cuniculus_ (1 sp.) N. E. Europe, Siberia, Greenland, Arctic America;

_Myodes_ (4 sp.) Europe, Siberia, Arctic America, and Northern United

States; _Myospalax_ = _Siphneus_ (2 sp.) Altai Mountains and N. China[4];

_Lophiomys_ (1 sp.) S. Arabia, and N. E. Africa; _Echiothrix_ (1 sp.)

Australia.

_Extinct Muridæ._--Species of _Mus_, _Cricetus_, _Arvicola_, and _Myodes_,

occur in the Post-Pliocene deposits of Europe; _Arvicola_, _Meriones_, and

the extinct genus _Cricetodon_, with some others, in the Miocene.

In North America, _Fiber_, _Arvicola_, and _Neotoma_, occur in caves;

{231}an extinct genus, _Eumys_, in the Upper Miocene of Dakota, and

another, _Mysops_, in the Eocene of Wyoming.

In South America _Mus_, or more probably _Hesperomys_, is abundant in

Brazilian caverns, and _Oxymycterus_ in the Pliocene of La Plata; while

_Arvicola_ is said to have occurred both in the Pliocene and Eocene

deposits of the same country.

FAMILY 56.--SPALACIDÆ. (7 Genera, 17 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Spalacidæ, or mole-rats, have a straggling distribution over the Old

World continents. They are found over nearly the whole of Africa, but only

in the South-east of Europe, and West of Temperate Asia, but appearing

again in North India, Malacca, and South China. _Ellobius_ (1 sp.), is

found in South Russia and South-west Siberia; _Spalax_ (1 sp.), Southern

Russia, West Asia, Hungary, Moldavia, and Greece (Plate II., vol. i. p.

218); _Rhizomys_ (6 sp.), Abyssinia, North India, Malacca, South China;

_Heterocephalus_ (1 sp.), Abyssinia; _Bathyerges_ (= _Orycterus_ 1 sp.),

South Africa; _Georychus_ (6 sp.), South, Central, and East Africa;

_Heliophobus_ (1 sp.), Mozambique.

FAMILY 57.--DIPODIDÆ. (3 Genera, 22 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Jerboas, or jumping mice, are especially characteristic of the regions

about the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean, being found in South

Russia, the Caspian district, Arabia, Egypt, {232}and Abyssinia; but they

also extend over a large part of Africa, and eastward to India; while

isolated forms occur in North America, and the Cape of Good Hope. _Dipus_ =

_Gerbillus_ (20 sp.), inhabits North and Central Africa, South-East Europe,

and across Temperate Asia to North China, also Afghanistan, India, and

Ceylon; _Pedetes_ (1 sp.), South Africa to Mozambique and Angola; _Jaculus_

= _Meriones_ (1 sp.), North America, from Nova Scotia and Canada, south to

Pennsylvania and west to California and British Columbia (Plate XX., vol.

ii. p. 135).

_Extinct Dipodidæ._--_Dipus_ occurs fossil in the Miocene of the Alps; and

an extinct genus, _Issiodromys_, said to be allied to _Pedetes_ of the Cape

of Good Hope, is from the Pliocene formations of Auvergne in France.

FAMILY 58.--MYOXIDÆ. (1 Genus, 12 Species.)

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.

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The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Volume 2 With a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's surface · 第 10 / 18 章

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